“Grant access” problem when trying to open Word docs


If you’re trying to open a Word doc, and it keeps saying you don’t have permission (even when you own the document), asking you to grant access to the document, and then still not giving you access; then just quit out of Word completely, and then launch it up again. The document should open fine after that.


28 responses to ““Grant access” problem when trying to open Word docs”

  1. Thanks so much. I spent many hours following advice from other sites then I FINALLY GOT TO YOUR SITE!!!!!!!! Jesus so simple solution. Quit word and re-launch. Ditto, problem solved. Thanks again,
    Angel Fani

  2. Hello Everyone, Yes it works but what is happening after an hour out two it goes back to the same issue. Uninstalling and reinstalling office resolved the problem, oddly this is happening on 3 computers for no reason. And does not happen to every document.

  3. It’s also useful to restart your computer and clear your cache. This is a REALLY ANNOYING quirk of Word and it enrages me every time.

  4. Thank you very much. Great and the easiest solution. I was trying many solutions but this is the best one.

  5. It did not work for me as the documents I needed to access were stored in OneDrive. If your document is stored in OneDrive, all you need to do is login to your OneDrive account and Word (or Excel and PowerPoint) will not ask you to grant permission anymore.

  6. Added comment- it maybe you are logged out of Dropbox. I saw the one drive comment and that occurred to me. Logged into DB and all fixed!

  7. I’m logged into Dropbox. I tried rebooting Word as well as my computer but still getting the same grant access problem. Tried to delete the Fonts folder but there isn’t one. Any updates on this? Help!

  8. I have a different issue. All of my hyperlinks in my word document are making me personally grant access to even my own document hyperlinks to files. How do we turn this feature off.

  9. OH MY GOD YOU ARE A TRUE LIFESAVER. I have an urgent work to submit but all of a sudden, this morning I could not open any of my word docs. I called the IT Dept in my office and all I can get from there are nagging. I read so many blogs (even the official microsoft forum) to see how I can fix it. Nothing works!! but your solution was so simple and actually works!! THANK YOUU!!

  10. This is an ongoing problem and very annoying, it keeps happening on and off constantly for years. Finally got so tired of it that I made the decision to change to Pages, as it’s a better than Word anyhow.

    Restarting Word won’t work when you have a new document that you can’t save. If you quit Word, you lose your work. So I have to copy it all and then paste it into a Pages document before I can restart Word.

    Might as well just switch to Pages and then the problem is solved.

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