“The document is locked for editing by another user” | A file is locked for editing by myself

Recently, when I was trying to open one of the excel files, it gave out the error message saying that the file is locked for editing. And surprisingly, it said that it was locked for editing by myself. And it was not a shared file and was saved locally on my computer. It gave me the option either to open a read-only copy or notify the user.

After some searching, I was able to find out that it is because the owner file for the document already exists. This can be due to
1) Excel has previously quit improperly and, therefore, did not delete the owner file.
2) The second instance of Excel was running in the background with the file already open.

1. End all excel processes in the task manager.

2. Delete the owner file.

The owner file is located in the same folder as the document that you tried to open. The owner file name uses the following convention: It begins with a tilde (~), followed by a dollar sign ($), followed by the remainder of the document file name. The file name extension is *.xls or *.xlsx. For example, the owner file for Document.xls or xlsx is named ~$document.xls or xlsx.

To find this file you can use the search utility “Search Everything”

Originally published at http://letterstoageek.blogspot.com on June 10, 2017.