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Home  Excel  How-to Unprotect an Excel Worksheet If You Forgot the Passcode

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How-to Unprotect an Excel Worksheet

If You Forgot the Passcode
By SteveEqualsTrue

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Several years ago, I created an Excel workbook and I “Protected” a worksheet, but, I forgot
the passcode the next day. Try and try, I couldn’t remember the password. Therefore, I
could never update the worksheet. It was really upsetting.

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Unprotect
Worksheet

But never fear, there is a fix if you forget your worksheet protection passcode so that you
can unprotect the worksheet or workbook. In this tutorial, I will show you how to do this.
It isn’t too hard, but it will take a few steps and you may want to download some free
software to help make it easier. Also, there is a sample protected file below so that you can
download and practice.

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4) Edit XML

Matched Content
5) Re-Zip File

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File Explorer

Then from the Folder Options dialog box, click on the View tab and then find and Uncheck Want to Receive the
the “Hide extensions for known file types”.
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Folder Options Uncheck Hide File Extensions

2) Change Excel File Extension from .xlsx to .zip

Now you may not know this, but Excel files are made up of a whole bunch of files. They
are all zipped up in a compressed zip file. So if we change the file extension from .xlsx to
.zip, we can see all these files that make up the Excel file. From File Explorer, you should
now see the extensions on the file name and you will want to rename the file from .xlsx to
.zip. You will see a warning pop-up asking if you really want to do this, but click on yes to
make the change take effect.

Change Excel Extension from .xlsx to .zip

Your new file will now look like this in the File Explorer window with a different icon.

Final Zip Extension

3) Extract All from Zip File

In order to edit the files, you will need to Extract the .zip file into all of its base files.

Extract Zip File

If you open the uncompressed zip file, your files will now look like this:

Zip Extracted Files

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4) Edit XML

In order to do this step, I recommend that you download an XML editor. XML is basically
text, but it can be easier to use the editor to quickly modify the file. I recommend XML
Toolbar as you see in the video below. Some people also use Notepad++ as well.

Once you have an XML editor open, you will need to navigate to the sheet with the
protection and open that file. The worksheet files are located in the “xl” folder.

Find XML Worksheet Location

Now you will need to find the Sheet Protection under Worksheets. Select it and press the
delete key. If you do this in another application, you will need to make sure you select the
entire section.

XML Toolbar Delete Sheet Protection

Your new XML file will now look like this and you can exit and save the file.

Final XML File

5) Re-Zip File

We will now need to re-zip the files into a new compressed .zip file. To do this, you will
need to go to the root of the uncompressed files and highlight all the files. Then right click
and go to the Share ribbon and click on ZIP button or right click on the selected files and
click on Send To>Compressed (zip) Folder

Create a Zip File

Give the new zip file a good name and your Compressed ZIP file will now look like this:

Final Compressed Zip File

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6) Change Zip File Extension from .zip to .xlsx

The final step is to reverse step 2 and change the new ZIP file extension back to an Excel
extension of .xlsx

From File Explorer rename the file from .xlsx to .zip. You will see a warning pop-up asking
if you really want to do this, but click on yes to make the change take effect.

ChangezipExtensiontoXlsx

Your file will now show an extension of .xlsx and when you open it, the hidden worksheet
will no longer be protected. Try it out with the sample file below.

Video Tutorial

How-to Unprotect an Excel Worksheet When Y…

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8:14 / 8:14

Sample protected file

Unhide the Sheet “Pics” and remove the protection using the above tutorial:

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Break-Protection-Sample.xlsx File

If you found this helpful, please let me know if this helped you in the comments below.
Thank you.

Steve=True

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SteveEqualsTrue

3 COMMENTS

Xl mini ninja March 17, 2016 at 7:22 am

Hi. That ‘sheetProtection’ folder is not there in my XML file for the password protected
worksheet. What am I missing here? Thanks
Reply

SteveEqualsTrue March 17, 2016 at 9:01 am

Hi there. This doesn’t work on Excel 2003. Also, check all the sheets. Finally, it
may be at the workbook level.
Reply

Anand Kumar November 9, 2016 at 3:31 am

I think below code would be helpful,

Sub PasswordBreaker()
‘Breaks worksheet password protection.
Dim i As Integer, j As Integer, k As Integer
Dim l As Integer, m As Integer, n As Integer
Dim i1 As Integer, i2 As Integer, i3 As Integer
Dim i4 As Integer, i5 As Integer, i6 As Integer
On Error Resume Next
For i = 65 To 66: For j = 65 To 66: For k = 65 To 66
For l = 65 To 66: For m = 65 To 66: For i1 = 65 To 66
For i2 = 65 To 66: For i3 = 65 To 66: For i4 = 65 To 66
For i5 = 65 To 66: For i6 = 65 To 66: For n = 32 To 126
ActiveSheet.Unprotect Chr(i) & Chr(j) & Chr(k) & _
Chr(l) & Chr(m) & Chr(i1) & Chr(i2) & Chr(i3) & _
Chr(i4) & Chr(i5) & Chr(i6) & Chr(n)
If ActiveSheet.ProtectContents = False Then
MsgBox “One usable password is ” & Chr(i) & Chr(j) & _
Chr(k) & Chr(l) & Chr(m) & Chr(i1) & Chr(i2) & _
Chr(i3) & Chr(i4) & Chr(i5) & Chr(i6) & Chr(n)
Exit Sub
End If
Next: Next: Next: Next: Next: Next
Next: Next: Next: Next: Next: Next
End Sub

May take some time to generate a usable pswd.

Reply

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