I have created a sheet with some dropdown list based on a range in another sheet and this sheet is protected to only me and then I sent this sheet to other users, what happened is that those users now can edit the data validation rules and modify the range and completely mess up the the dropdown lists.
Only sheet owners should be able to modify data validation rules and dropdown list options.
I created a video showing this bug.
Hey,
Hope you’re keeping well.
In Google Sheets, data validation settings aren’t separately permission-restricted — any editor with full edit access to a sheet can change validation rules, even if the source range is protected. To prevent this, you’ll need to change their access level from Editor to Viewer or Commenter, or use Protected ranges to lock the cells containing the validation rules so only you can edit them. You can set this in Data > Protect sheets and ranges and assign permissions so only the owner can modify those cells. This isn’t a bug but current Sheets behavior, so if you need granular control over dropdown lists, consider using Apps Script to repopulate or enforce validation automatically when changes are detected.
Thanks and regards,
Taz