Thanks Kathy. I have another way of doing something that rids the file of its protected status - your way may be faster so that does help. What I am really hoping for is a way to change the settings so I only get protected files when I first download them and notwhen I make copies of them on my own hard drive or change the name of them on my own hard drive From: adaptivetec-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:adaptivetec-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Kathy Morales Sent: Monday, October 27, 2014 12:13 PM To: adaptivetec@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [adaptivetec] Re: protected word and excel files Hello, David. I, too, have been experiencing this with protected files. What I have been doing is: Control F and arrow down the "home" ribbon (it is quite a ways down) to the "save as", and enter. It will tell me it cannot open so I tab twice to "enable saving" button and select this choice. It then allows me to resave it and I can open it without a problem. But, just to be certain, I save it as an .rtf. I hope that this helps, and that you have not lost a toe over it! Kathy From: adaptivetec-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:adaptivetec-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of David Hoffman Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2014 6:32 PM To: adaptivetec@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [adaptivetec] protected word and excel files Hello folks smarter then I: In order to prevent me from shooting my left toe off in frustration please help me with the following. I have settings that make all word and excel files that I save off emails are saved as protected files. This is grand. Simply trippy. However, and this is only recently, whenever I copy a compatible (i.e., unprotected) file or rename a file, when I open that newly named/copied file it becomes protected again. Please help. Please please. I searched online and all I get is how to trun off protection of all files downloaded from email. That is not what I had before and not what I want