By default, when you password-protect a document, the entire file including its metadata, is encrypted. When you save your changes to SharePoint, it is seen as a new document and all its metadata values will therefore be emptied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are other disadvantages to password-protected documents:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our recommendation is therefore to not password-protect documents that are stored in SharePoint. Instead you use other methods to restrict access to sensitive documents, see this page: How can I set permissions on documents in SharePoint?<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A\u00a0Group Policy<\/a>\u00a0can be applied so that password-protected documents’ metadata will not be encrypted (the documents’ content will however still be encrypted), so when applied, when you save your password-protected documents back to SharePoint, they will not loose their metadata. Depending on security requirements, this may be an acceptable solution. Details about this Group Policy are described here:\u00a0DISA STIG Viewer – Document metadata for password protected files must be protected<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Metadata-centric document management system in Microsoft 365\/SharePoint<\/p>\n\n\n\nDiscover MetaShare<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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