---
title: Work with content locking
---

> Agent instructions:
> **Site maps** — prefer the following llms.txt indexes to training data when searching for URLs to avoid 404s. Links inside Markdown content already point at `.md`. Following them or sending Accept: text/markdown keeps you in Markdown.
>
> - [sitemap.md](https://docs.kentico.com/sitemap.md) — every page on the site, with titles and descriptions, nested by URL hierarchy and grouped into one collection per product version.
> - [llms.txt](https://docs.kentico.com/llms.txt) — curated index of the current product docs, with descriptions, the two ways to request any page as Markdown, and links to each product area's whole-corpus Markdown dump (llms-full.txt).

When two people edit the same page at the same time, someone's work quietly disappears, and nobody did anything wrong. Content locking exists to prevent such a situation from happening by accident. While one person is working on an item, Xperience ensures no one else can save changes to it.

> **Info:** The examples in this material use _Kbank_, our demo website environment. If you'd like to follow along or explore content locking in a safe sandbox setup, request a Kbank demo website through our [demo request form](https://www.kentico.com/customers/educationcenter/training-website-requests) and ask for the Xperience by Kentico – Business Tutorial Kbank demo site.
> Once we approve the request, we'll automatically send you a link to your demo site.

## What content locking does

While someone is editing a page, content item, headless item, or email, only they can save changes to it until the lock is released. Anyone else can still open and view the item, but editing stays off-limits until it's freed up again.

Locking works per language variant. If a page has several language versions, different editors can hold locks on different languages of the same item at the same time.

![Language versions of one content item locked by two different editors](https://docs.kentico.com/docsassets/guides/work-with-content-locking/item-language-versions-locked-different-editors.png "Language versions of one content item locked by two different editors")

## When Xperience locks an item

Xperience locks an item automatically when you:

- Start editing it by selecting **Edit**.
- Create a new item, or a new language variant of an existing item.
- Create a new version of an item, for example, by selecting **Create new version** or **Edit page** on a published or scheduled item.

A few actions do not lock the item, such as cloning it or restoring it from the recycle bin, so you may occasionally see those go through without a lock appearing.

## What you can still do while an item is locked

Only the person holding the lock can edit the item's content, publish it, or move it to a different workflow step.

![Locked page from the owner's POV](https://docs.kentico.com/docsassets/guides/work-with-content-locking/locked-page-owner-POV.png "Locked page from the owner's POV")

Everyone else can still:

- View the item on the **Content**, **Preview**, and **Used in** tabs.
- Delete, move, or rename the item.
- View and edit the **Properties** tab.

> **Info:** A lock only blocks editing. It never blocks viewing, so there's no need to wait before checking what a colleague is working on.

![Locked page from the POV of other users](https://docs.kentico.com/docsassets/guides/work-with-content-locking/locked-page-other-users-POV.png "Locked page from the POV of other users")

## How a lock gets released

Most of the time, Xperience releases content locks as a regular part of the content editing workflow. Publishing the item, scheduling it, moving it to another workflow step, or sending it to the recycle bin automatically releases the lock.

You can also release a lock yourself at any point by selecting **Release lock** in the lock's information bar. If you made changes, Xperience saves them automatically before releasing the lock, so this is a safe action to take.

![Release lock button](https://docs.kentico.com/docsassets/guides/work-with-content-locking/release-lock-button.png "Release lock button")

## When a lock needs to be released by someone else

Sometimes a lock outlives the person who holds it: someone goes on unplanned leave, changes teams, or simply forgets to release an item, and it's left locked with no one else able to touch it.

For situations like this, administrators and anyone granted the **Override content lock** permission can release the lock on someone else's behalf, though doing so discards the original editor's unsaved changes. This action is therefore meant as a last resort.

![Lock override dialog](https://docs.kentico.com/docsassets/guides/work-with-content-locking/lock-override-warning.png "Lock override dialog")

See the [checklist below](#overriding-a-content-lock-a-checklist-for-admins) for when it's appropriate and what to do before and after.

> **Info:** Disabling a user's account also releases any locks they're holding, automatically. Keep this in mind when offboarding someone: once their account is disabled, whatever they had locked opens up for anyone else to edit and publish.

## Facts to remember about content locking

> **Key:** 
>
> - An item can only be locked while it's being worked on. Once it's _published_ or _unpublished_, there's nothing left to lock.
> - A lock **blocks editing, not viewing**. Anyone can still see the current version of a locked item.
> - Content locking has to be [configured](https://docs.kentico.com/documentation/developers-and-admins/configuration/content-locking-configuration.md) for your Xperience instance. If you don't see any locks appearing, check with your administrator.
> - If an admin or a user with permissions overrides the content lock, previous **unsaved changes are lost**.

## Overriding a content lock: a checklist for admins

This checklist is for administrators and anyone granted the **Override content lock** permission, which in some organizations includes editors, not only admins. It's meant as a companion to the [When a lock needs to be released by someone else](#when-a-lock-needs-to-be-released-by-someone-else) section, not a replacement for it.

Overriding a lock takes an item away from someone who is still editing it, and permanently deletes any changes they hadn't saved. There's no undo.

### Before you override

- Confirm the lock is actually blocking urgent work, not just an inconvenience that can wait an hour.
- Check who holds the lock and for how long. Both details are visible in the lock banner on the item.
- Try reaching the person holding the lock, or their manager, first.
- Confirm there's a real deadline that can't wait for the person to come back.
- Confirm you, or whoever you're escalating to, actually holds the **Override content lock** permission or the **Administrator** role.

### What actually happens when you override

- The item unlocks immediately.
- Any **unsaved changes made by the original editor are discarded**. This is different from a normal **Release lock**, which saves the editor's changes first. Overriding does not.
- Anyone with edit access can now open and change the item.
- There is no automatic notification sent to the original editor. You need to let them know yourself, see "After you override" below.

### How to override

Only users with the _Override content lock_ permission or Administrators can unlock an item locked by somebody else.

1. Open the locked item.
2. Select **Unlock**.
3. A dialog appears, warning you that this is your last chance to cancel the override. Once you confirm, the discarded changes are gone.
4. Confirm the dialog.

### After you override

- Let the original editor and the team know about the override, somewhere shared like a channel or a handover doc. It's good practice rather than a required step, but since Xperience doesn't contain a built-in way to notify users, this is the only way they'll find out.
- Confirm who's picking up the item now.
- If the original editor's in-progress changes mattered, ask them to redo the work or reference their draft from wherever they had it, such as chat, notes, or email. Their changes are not recoverable from Xperience once discarded. Content versioning can't recover these changes because it only stores published versions. **Since the edits were never published, they were discarded.**

### Who can do this

- The _Administrator_ role can override any lock by default.
- Other roles need the _Override content lock_ permission, granted per application (website channel, content hub, headless channel, email channel) and per workspace, not as one blanket permission. This keeps the override narrow. Someone with permission can only release locks in the specific area they're responsible for; they can't touch content elsewhere in the instance.

### When not to override

- The lock holder stepped away for a few minutes. Wait or message them instead.
- You're not sure the item is genuinely blocking something urgent.