ClickUp Protected Views: Lock a Shared Layout

ClickUp protected views are shared layouts that other people can open and cannot quietly redesign. Filters, sorting, columns, grouping, view settings, and collapsed groups stay as you left them until someone with permission unprotects the view. The signal is a shield icon beside the view name.

That is the feature to use when a client board or a team List keeps losing its columns because someone experimented and saved. It is not a way to hide the view. Hiding is a private view, and that is a different control. Setup for the List itself is in ClickUp List view. The board version of the same idea is ClickUp Board view. Every ClickUp page starts from the ClickUp hub.

What does a protected view lock?

Help lists six things a protect action freezes:

• Filters
• Sorting
• Columns
• Grouping
• View settings
• Collapsed groups

Tasks themselves are not frozen. People can still do the work the view shows, within their normal task permissions. What they cannot do is save a new filter, a new column set, or a new grouping onto that view. The lock holds until an authorized person unprotects it.

You can protect a view at any level of the hierarchy: a Space, a Folder, a Subfolder, or a List. By default, anyone with Full edit permission at the Folder, Subfolder, or List level can unprotect a view in that location. You can narrow that later.

Protecting a Doc view also protects the Doc. That is a second product from the same click, and it has a stricter plan rule, covered below. Docs as a writing surface are in ClickUp Docs.

Which plan includes ClickUp protected views?

Help's views feature article is the plan table. Prices for Free Forever, Unlimited, and Business are from our tool data, checked October 2026. Help lists Business Plus and Enterprise. Our price table does not publish a Business Plus rate, so this page does not invent one.

Uses are the part teams miscount. Protecting counts. Unprotecting counts. Help's example: you protect a List view, unprotect it to change a filter, then protect it again. Those are three uses. Business includes 10. A team that locks and unlocks the same client board every week will spend the allowance on one view.

Our prices for the plans that bracket this choice: Free Forever is $0. Unlimited is $7 per user per month billed annually ($10 monthly). Business is $12 per user per month billed annually ($19 monthly). Enterprise is custom. The full note is ClickUp pricing. Buying Unlimited does not unlock protect. The views article puts the first 10 uses on Business.

A related control, so you do not mix the menus up: setting a default view is also off on Free Forever and Unlimited, then 5 uses on Business, and unlimited on Business Plus and Enterprise. Default views cannot be set from the mobile app. That counter is not the protect counter.

How do you protect a view?

1. In the Views Bar, right-click the view.
2. Select Protect view.
3. Optionally add a message people will see if they try to unprotect the view.
4. Optionally click Manage permissions and decide who can unprotect it.
5. Click Protect Layout.

The shield icon is how everyone else recognizes the lock. If you are teaching a client or a new teammate, tell them to look for that icon before they assume the filter is broken.

Editing after the lock depends on permission.

Someone who is allowed to change it makes the edits, sees a message in the lower-left, and chooses Unprotect View. The changes save. That unprotect is a use on Business, and protecting again is another use.

Someone who is not allowed sees the same style of message and can choose Revert. The changes are not saved. Refreshing the page or leaving the view also throws those temporary edits away. They can look, and they cannot keep a new layout.

Permissions can be edited after the fact. Right-click the view, and under Protect view click Edit permissions.

Help's permissions article lists protect and unprotect as available to everyone except guests. Guests are out of that action even when they can open a location that was shared with them. Favoriting a view, which Limited permission still allows, only adds a personal shortcut. It does not change the shared layout. That shortcut is covered in ClickUp favorites.

How is a protected view different from a private view?

People mix these up because both sit in the view menu and both start getting useful on Business.

A required view is the one ClickUp keeps on a location, such as the List that every Space, Folder, Subfolder, and List has. You can protect that shared List so the columns stay put. You cannot make that required List private. An extra view can be private on Business and above.

Use protect when everyone should see the same board, and one accidental filter would hide a client's work. Use a private view when the filter is only for you, for example a personal cut of tasks you do not want on the shared screen. Sharing a private view has its own Full edit and Limited choices, described in Help's private-view article. This page is about the lock, not about hiding.

Gantt is another view people protect once the zoom, grouping, and filters are agreed. The chart itself is covered in ClickUp Gantt charts. Workload and Timeline have their own plan caps. Protect does not remove those caps. It only locks the layout you already have.

When should a team protect a view?

Protect a view after the layout is the one you want the group to share. A small agency pattern:

1. Build the client List or Board with the statuses, assignee column, and due date you already use. Do this before any lock. How to use ClickUp is the hierarchy if the location does not exist yet.
2. Confirm the filter. A Board grouped by status, with done tasks collapsed, is a common client view. The collapse is one of the things protect freezes, so set it on purpose.
3. Right-click and protect. Add a short message such as the name of the person who owns the layout, so the next editor knows whom to ask.
4. Give Full edit only to the people who should change that layout. Leave everyone else on Limited if the view's own permissions let you.
5. If you are still on Unlimited, do not plan on this lock. Either accept that members with edit access can change the view, or price Business at $12 per user per month billed annually before you promise a client a stable board.

ClickUp for agencies is the wider client setup. Sharing a view with someone outside the Workspace is ClickUp as a client portal. Protect is what keeps that shared screen from drifting after you hand them the link.

ClickUp is a strong fit when one Workspace has to hold the client board, the internal List, and the docs. Trello is easier if the team only needs a simple board and will not miss locked filters. Asana is the more polished tracker if you want less configuration. Protect is worth Business when the cost of a broken shared filter is higher than the jump from Unlimited. It is not worth Business if nobody shares views in the first place.