When you are using an Exchange account then, by default, Protected View for all attachments from internal emails is disabled while it is left enabled for external emails. Disabling Protected View for internal emails only To disable this see Don’t open Word attachments in Reading Layout. Note 2: Word documents may get opened in the Reading Layout. This can be disabled as described in Do not always ask before opening this type of file. Note 1: You now may get prompted to Open or Save the attachment first. Once disabled, Word, Excel and PowerPoint attachments will open directly in edit mode.

In Word, Excel and/or PowerPoint choose:įile-> Options-> Trust Center-> Trust Center Settings…-> Protected View-> deselect option: Enable Protected View for Outlook attachments.You can disable Protected View in the following way: This is basically a sandbox environment where no code can be executed so any included malware will be harmless and can't affect your system just by opening the attachmentĭisabling Protected View in Word, Excel and PowerPoint When a Word document, Excel sheet or PowerPoint slide deck is opened from an untrusted source, such as the Internet or from an email, then the document will be opened in Protected View. Protected View is a security feature of Word, Excel and PowerPoint which is separate from Outlook's Attachments Security (blocking) feature. Is there a way to 'unblock' these attachments by default? Upon opening attachments, they get opened in a Protected View which prevents me from editing the file unless I first press on the 'Enable Editing' button.Īs I'm always very careful about which attachments I open and often need to edit and return attachments, I find this additional step a bit annoying.

Excel open in protected view