Google has recently rolled out a new feature for its Workspace customers that makes it easier for them to lock files in Google Drive. In other words, this new feature will allow Workspace users to “Lock” any Drive file to prevent unwanted comments and edits to their documents.

You Can Now Lock Google Drive Files To Prevent Unwanted Edits

Announcing the feature in its latest Google Workspace Updates blog post, the company said, “This update simplifies and streamlines the process of restricting files in Drive, which was previously only available through the Google Drive API or through file approvals.”

In order to lock a Drive file, you must have edit access to the Drive file. Once you have access, go to Google Drive and open it. When hovering over a file in Drive, right-click into the Context menu. Select the “File information” option. Then, from the drop-down menu, tap “Lock” to confirm that you actually want to lock the document.

Do note that once the file is locked on Drive, no one, including you, will be able to change a file until it is unlocked. Also, when the Lock feature is enabled, edits, comments, and suggestions cannot be added to the locked documents. However, you can edit by unlocking a file through the context menu.

Google has gradually started rolling out the Google Drive file lock feature to all its Workspace customers in the Rapid Release domain. It is expected to become available to all users in the next 15 days.

For those under the Scheduled Release domain, the feature will gradually start rolling out on September 20, 2023, and is expected to reach everyone in the 15-day rollout period.