How to make changes to a protected excel file. Excel unprotect a sheet without knowing the password? How to crack a password in Excel: an easy way
How to remove protection from an Excel sheet online? Today we will tell you how to remove protection from a sheet in Excel (Excel), from the most simple options to a small hack.
And so simple methods when we put a password on the sheet ourselves, or we know the password. In versions of Excel 2007-2010, open required file in Excel, go to the Review tab and select “Unprotect sheet” in the window that appears, enter our password and enjoy the work.
In older versions of Excel, go to the menu, select “Service”, then “Protection” and next step Click on “Unprotect sheet”, enter the password again and work.
But what to do when we have forgotten the password, or are using a document that we did not create, but need to work with it. Let's get to the interesting stuff...
And so any Excel file (Excel) is essentially an archive that contains different files in xml format, we will do magic with them.
The first thing we do is change the file extension from xlsx to zip. This can be done simply by changing the file name and writing it to zip after the dot.
The next step is to go into it and look for everything xml files. You need to open it using notepad, and already inside them we look for the “sheetProtection” values, it can look like this: sheetProtection password = "CV1ACV1" sheet = "1" objects = "1" scenarios = "0" selectLockedCells = "1" selectUnlockedCells = " 1". I’ll say right away that it won’t be in all files, but this is exactly our password, and it will definitely be found in one if the sheet is password-protected.
When we have found the value we need, we delete everything in quotes and the quotes themselves, save the file, rename it again, but now from the zip format to the format with the xlsx extension. We launch the file and work without any passwords.
Method number 1:
Using the program: Excel Password Viewer, open the file for which you need to find out the password value. (I don’t provide a link, search in Google search)
The program displays the password that is on the sheet in the Excel document: In my case it was: 622662
T.K. The file was created in Excel 2003, so to unlock it you need to do the following:
We open it in Excel 2010 (although there is nothing else on the server) – Review – Unprotect the sheet and enter given password in pop-up window: 622662
We remove the sheet protection by entering the password identified by the utility
Problem solved.
Method number 2:
Because file in Excel format 2003, then open it in Office Excel 2010 and resave it in a new format - xlsx, because Excel 2010 files are converted containers. To open them you need to do quite a bit simple steps. Below are all the steps.
Resaving a 2003 Excel document into Excel 2010
I change the file resolution from xlsx to zip:
First you need to enable the display of file extensions, this is done like this:
Start – Computer – Organize – View – Menu Bar – Tools – Folder Options – View – uncheck the item:
Hide extensions for registered file types
After which it will be possible to change the file extension, select the file, press it, or right-click on it “Rename”, or press F2 and rename it after the dot symbol.
Previously: Vacation schedule of the commercial department_old.xlsx
New: Commercial department vacation schedule_old.zip
The next step is to open the document container with the archiver manager and follow the path: /xl/worksheets/sheet1.xml,
Start – All Programs – 7-Zip – 7-Zip File Manage
I open the Excel document container with the 7Zip archiver
where sheet1.xml is the sheet from which we reset the password.
I extract this file“sheet1.xml” from this container, for example, to the working directory.
I extract this file “sheet1.xml” from this container
And then we open text editor, in my case I always use Notepad++ and through the search (Ctrl + F) we look for the first occurrence of the word: sheetProtection
looking for the first occurrence of the word: sheetProtection
I delete this line:
After through file manager FreeCommander I open on the left side the directory where the sheet1.xml file is located, and on the right side open zip archive and drag this file into the open archive.
The next step is to rename the zip container file back to xlsx
Previously: Commercial department vacation schedule_old.zip
New: Commercial department vacation schedule_old.xlsx
After these actions, the sheet protection is deactivated.
We open the file: and it opens and now the ability to make changes is activated.
The document's Excel sheet is now unprotected
To encrypt Excel, you need to click File - Details - Encrypt with password in the toolbar.
A small window will open in which you will need to write a password and click OK. Another window will open in which you will need to enter the same password again for confirmation. After this, to set a password on Excel, you will need to close it and confirm saving the changes. Now, when opening a file, you will need to enter a password, otherwise you will not see what is in this file.
To remove the password from protecting an Excel sheet, you need to know the password.
To remove the password from an Excel file, you will first need to open it using the password, and then click File - Details - Encrypt with password. A window will open in which you will need to remove the protection from Excel by deleting the password so that the password field remains blank and then click OK.
To protect Excel from copying, click File in the toolbar and select Save As.
In Excel, password protection is triggered via File
A window called Saving Document will open. In this window, you need to click on Service and select the item from the list that opens General Settings.
Excel Password Protection is in General Options
A window called General Settings will open in which there are two lines in which passwords are entered.
Installing Excel password I need to write it down somewhere so I don’t forget it
If you enter the password only in the first line, the file will be opened only with the password, but the documents can be changed.
If you enter the password in the second line, the file will open without a password, but it will not be possible to save this document with any changes made to it, but it will be possible to save this document with the changes under a different name. A saved document under a different name will be password protected only for opening the file, and there will no longer be a password for copy protection.
To remove protection in Excel, you will need to click the file again and select Save As, and then in the window called Saving Document, click Tools and select General Options from the list that opens. A window will open called General Settings in which you need to remove the protection in Excel by deleting all passwords in the form of dots so that the fields are blank and click OK.
In some cases, it is necessary to protect Excel from editing and copying but still allow data to be entered into some cells. To do this, select the cells in which you want to enter data, hover the cursor over them and press the right mouse button. A context menu will open in which you need to select Format Cells. A window called Format Cells will open.
You need to remove Excel protection for the cells you selected.
In this window, on the Protection tab, uncheck the Protected cell box and click OK. After that, on the toolbar in Excel, go to the Review tab and click on Protect Sheet.
A window called Sheet Protection will open.
In this window, you need to uncheck all the boxes except for the Select unlocked cells item, and enter a password in the window to disable the sheet protection. By clicking the OK button, another window will open in which you need to enter the same password for confirmation and click OK. After this, it will be impossible to make any changes on this sheet, and it will also be impossible to select except those cells from which you previously removed the protection in the Format Cells window.
To unprotect an Excel sheet, go to the Review tab and on this tab click Unprotect Sheet.
Shows how to remove password from Excel sheet
A window called Unprotect Sheet will open. Now, in order to unprotect a sheet in Excel, you just need to enter a password and click OK. This way you can easily remove the password from Excel, and if necessary, you will need to set it again. However, if you close Excel and do not agree to save the changes, you will not be able to remove the password from Excel and the protection will remain enabled.
By default, Sheet Protection locks all cells so that none of them are editable. To enable some cell changes while leaving other cells locked, you can unlock all cells. You can lock only certain cells and ranges before you protect the worksheet and, if necessary, allow certain users change only in certain ranges of the protected sheet.
Lock only certain cells and ranges of cells in a protected worksheet
Follow the steps below.
Password is optional. If you do not set a password, any user can unprotect the sheet and change protected items.
Choose a password that is easy to remember because if you lose your password, you will no longer be able to access the protected elements of the worksheet.
If the sheet is protected, do the following:
Select the entire sheet by clicking the button Select all.
On the tab Home click the dialog box button cell font format. You can also press CTRL+SHIFT+F or CTRL+1.
In the dialog box Cell Format on the tab Protection uncheck blocked and click the button OK.
When you protect a sheet, all cells will be unlocked. Now you can select the specific cells you want to protect.
Select only the cells on the worksheet that you want to lock.
Open the popup again Cell Format(Ctrl + Shift + F).
This time on the tab Protection select the Protected cell check box, and then click OK.
On the tab Review click the button Protect sheet.
From the list, select the items that you want users to be able to change.
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Chart Sheet Elements
In the field, enter the password for the sheet, click the button OK
Unlock ranges of cells in a protected worksheet so users can change them
To give specific users permission to change ranges on a protected worksheet, your computer must have operating system Microsoft Windows XP or later, and the computer itself must be in a domain. Instead of using permissions that require a domain, you can also set a password for the range.
To add a new editable range, click the button Create.
To change an existing editable range, select the field, then click the button Change.
To remove an editable range, select the field Protected sheet ranges unlocked by password, then click the button Delete.
Make changes to graphics, including maps, embedded charts, shapes, text boxes, and controls that were not unlocked before you secured the worksheet. For example, if there is a button on a worksheet that runs a macro, it can be clicked to run the macro, but cannot be removed.
Make any changes (such as formatting) to the embedded chart. The chart will still update as its source data changes.
Add or change notes.
Select the sheets you want to protect.
On the tab Review in the group Changes press the button.
This command is only available if the sheet is not protected.
Do one of the following:
In the field Name Enter the name of the range you want to unlock.
In the field Contains cells enter an equal sign ( = ), followed by a link to the range you want to unlock.
You can also click the button Collapse dialog box, select a range on the sheet, and then click the button again Collapse dialog box to return to the dialog box.
To control access using a password in the field Range Password enter the password to access the range.
When using access permissions, you do not need to specify a password. Using a password allows you to view the credentials of all authorized users who change the range.
To set access permissions, select Permissions and press the button Add.
In the field Enter object names to select (examples) Enter the names of the users you want to allow to change ranges.
To see how usernames should be entered, click examples. To check the names are correct, click the button Check names.
Click the button OK.
To specify the type of permissions for the selected user, in the Permissions check or uncheck Allow or Prohibit and then click the button Apply.
Click the button OK twice.
If necessary, enter the specified password.
In the dialog box Allow changing ranges click the button Protect sheet.
On the list Allow all users of this sheet select the items you want users to change.
More information about sheet elements
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Chart Sheet Elements
In the field Password to disable sheet protection enter the password, click the button OK, and then re-enter your password to confirm.
Password is optional. If you do not set it, any user can unprotect the sheet and change protected elements.
Make sure you choose a password that you can remember. If you have lost your password, you will not be able to access the protected items in the worksheet.
If a cell belongs to more than one range, it can be edited by users who have edit rights to any of those ranges.
If a user tries to change multiple cells at the same time and is allowed to make changes but not all of those cells, the user will be prompted to change the cells one at a time.
More information
You can always ask a question to an Excel Tech Community specialist, ask for help in the Answers community, and also suggest new feature or an improvement on the Excel User Voice website.
Note: This page has been automatically translated and may contain inaccuracies and grammatical errors. It is important to us that this article is useful to you. Was the information useful? For convenience also (in English).
Password to remove protection from Excel sheet. Good afternoon, friends. In the article before last, we looked at the method. We also figured out how such protection can be removed. This means removing the password when you remember it. If you don’t remember it, then it’s more difficult to do it. But, anyway, you can remove the protection from Excel. True, we will have to resort to third-party software. But these are minor things.
In addition, I hope that you will apply the acquired knowledge on your computer and with your documents. Don't forget about criminal liability when you commit similar actions with other people's documents.
How to unprotect an Excel sheet?
First of all, we need to open Excel, which is protected. Please note that all the tools in the Excel sheet menu are colored faded gray. That is, they are not active. In such a document, you cannot enter anything into any cell or change anything in it.
If you try to do this, the following window will appear:
So, to remove the password from a document, click on the “File” tab of the main window.
A new window appears, where in the left column we select the “Information” tab. After that, in a new window, select the “Unprotect” command.
At the same time, Excel will ask you to enter a password to remove the protection. But we don't remember him. Therefore, you do not need to enter anything into this window. Click “Cancel”.
You can also enter this window using another tab – “Reviewing”, which is located on the main menu. On this tab we need to select “Unprotect sheet”. A window with a password appears, click “Cancel”.
You can read this book. But you can’t change anything about it. However, in most cases, users install minimal protection. For example, the book I’m looking at now can not only be read, but also copy text from it. This is done by selecting cell fragments, then using the drop-down menu, select “Copy” (or Ctrl + C) and paste the copied fragment into another book or text editor.
Let's add the copied fragment into a new book. File – New – New Book. Press Ctrl + V. As you can see, the data from our document was perfectly copied into a new document. At the same time, without hacking the password.
Removing Excel 2003 protection
The option that we discussed with you works on new versions of Excel. In older versions, the protection option is partially different.
To remove the code, perform the following manipulations.
After these steps, a window will appear in which you will be asked to enter a password.
How to remove password in Excel?
So, first you need to check whether your Windows shows extensions at the end of files or not. Many computers do not display extensions. So let's check it out.
Our document has an xlsx extension, but we need to change it to zip. That is, to the archive folder. To do this, select the file and click on the F2 button. Before renaming the extension, a window appears. Click “Yes”.
This document is now Windows system considers it an archive, so she gave him a new label in the form of an archive.
This archive must be opened without unpacking it. That is, open it in the WinRar program itself or in the one you use. Main, this archive cannot be unpacked. To do this, you need to right-click on the archive and context menu select "Open in WinRar".
Then, we need to go to the “xl” folder of the “WinRar” program or another archiver.
After that, go to the “worksheets” folder.
In this folder we see how many sheets the book has. Select the one you need from the sheets and drag it into the “Explorer” with the mouse.
Now, you need to right-click on this file. Select “Edit” from the drop-down menu.
I opened a document with an incomprehensible code entry in WordPad, yours will most likely open in Notepad, but this does not change the essence. We need to enter the WordPad menu search, or via the Ctrl + F keys.
In the search you need to enter the word “sheetProtection”, followed by “Find Next”.
Now starting from the tag sheetProtection remove all content up to the closing tag. I have up to " scenarios="1"" I highlighted this part yellow. In other words, be sure to remove the code starting with the opening parenthesis<, и заканчивайте закрывающей>. If you removed one of these brackets, simply add it from the Latin keyboard. After deleting, click “Save”.
Now, we transfer the converted file again to the archive folder.
We must not just migrate the code, but replace the files. Click OK.
Now the archiver program needs to be closed. Then, we again add the xlsx extension to the archive by selecting it and pressing F2. Our program asks again. Click Yes.
Our document has become Excel again. Now you need to launch it. After these manipulations, we see that all the cells of the document are now easy to edit. That is, we managed to remove the xlsx password without knowing it. Mission accomplished!
Video password remove protection from Excel sheet
Conclusion: The task of how to remove a password from an Excel sheet is completed. As you can see, everything is simple, although a little confusing. From third party programs we only used WinRar. Although, you can use any archiver. If you have this action it didn’t work, it means you deleted the extra part of the code, or vice versa, left it. Therefore, be extremely careful. Also, write down your passwords in several places so as not to resort to such means. Good luck!
Excel program from the package Microsoft Office is perhaps the most popular office application. It is used everywhere for storing data, working with tables, importing and exporting information for other purposes. IN Microsoft Excel There are a lot of functions for storing and protecting information, which are useful to activate if several people are working on a file at the same time. Among the security features in Excel, it is possible to set password protection on a separate sheet, limiting various actions with the data on it. In this article, we will look at how to protect a sheet in Excel, as well as how to remove it, including without knowing the password.
Table of contents:How to protect a sheet and password in Excel
To protect information on a sheet in Microsoft Excel from unwanted changes, just set a password on the sheet. This can be done using functions built into the program:
How to remove password protection from a worksheet in Excel
If you receive an Excel file with a password set on a sheet, and you know the password, removing it is not difficult. To do this:
After this, the protection from the sheet in Excel will be removed, and it will be possible to perform all actions available to the program with the sheet of this file.
How to remove password protection from a worksheet in Excel without knowing the password
There are several ways to remove protection from an Excel sheet without knowing the password. Below we consider two options:
- Using an archiver. This method is more complicated, but it allows you to remove the password from a sheet on a computer that is not connected to the Internet.
- Using Google service Tables. A simpler option to remove protection from a sheet, but requires an Internet connection.
Important: You can find all kinds of programs on the Internet that promise to remove protection from a sheet in Excel without a password. We do not recommend installing such applications on your computer. There is a high chance that they may be infected with viruses.
Using an archiver
Let's look at a way to remove protection from a sheet in Excel without knowing the password. To do this, you will need any archiver installed on your computer - WinRar, WinZip or another. Perform the following steps in sequence:
- Install in Explorer Windows opportunity display the extension of file names in the folder where the Excel file with worksheet protection is located. To do this, in the explorer at the top, switch to the “View” tab and check the option;
- Next, you need to go to the Excel file renaming mode (right-click on it and select the “Rename” option). As you can see, it is possible to change not only the file name, but also the extension. Change the extension “.xlsx” to “.zip”;
- When changing the name, a warning window will appear that this may have a negative effect on the file. Click “Yes” to confirm that you want to change the file;
- Next, you need to open the resulting “.zip” file using any archiver;
- Inside the archive you can see several files and folders. Go to the “xl” folder;
- Next, go to the “worksheets” folder;
- Here, all sheets of this Excel document are displayed in “.xml” format. The sheets are assigned a serial number, depending on their sequence in the document itself. Select the “sheepN” file, depending on the sheet from which you want to remove protection. Click on it and move the file to any folder in Windows Explorer;
- After that, in Explorer, right-click on the file and select the “Open with” - “Notepad” option to switch to its editing mode;
- The text of the file will open in Notepad, as well as its technical information. Here you need to edit the code, removing references to the password from it. Press the “Ctrl+F” combination on your keyboard to open a document search and enter the phrase “sheetProtection” into it;
- One mention of this phrase in the document will be found. This expression is enclosed together with other variables in a single block, which is opened with the symbol “<” и закрывается символом “>" Select this block and remove it from the file;
- Next you need to save the changes in a notepad file;
- After this, copy the modified “sheepN.xml” file back to the archive in the folder from which you took it. If it appears information message with confirmation of file replacement - confirm;
- Close the archive and change the file extension back from “.zip” to “.xlsx”.
After this you can simply open the file with using Excel, and password protection will be removed from the sheet, that is, it will be possible to perform all actions with information from the document.
Situations when users create documents in the form of spreadsheets and protect them with a password occur quite often. This is sometimes necessary so that changes are not made to the formulas or they are simply not visible. Many people are starting to think about how to remove the password from an Excel file or remove the protection. Below are a few simple methods that allow you to perform such operations in just a couple of minutes.
How to remove protection from an Excel file if you know the password?
First, let's consider the common situation when a sheet or group of sheets is protected, but the user knows the password to be able to change the contents.
The algorithm for removing protection is as follows. First, you should use the main panel, in which you select the review section and then go to the unprotect line. To confirm the action, you will be prompted to enter a valid password, after which the sheet or file will become available for editing.
This one is simple. But how then can a user who needs to make changes to the file remove the password from a file but does not know or does not remember the required combination? There are several methods you can use here.
How to remove a password from an Excel file using the program?
The password removal method looks quite simple. For this purpose in open document you need to use the file menu, where you select the line of information about it.
After this, the button to set protection for the book is pressed, and then the password encryption option is used. The window that appears will show the previously installed combination. How to remove password from Excel file? Yes, just remove all the characters from the password line and save the document again. When you reopen the workbook, you will no longer be prompted to enter a password.
Using File Format Change
There is another equally effective way to resolve the issue of how to remove the password from an Excel file. We are talking about changing the format of the source document.
At first open file you need to save directly in the program, selecting XML as the format. New document then it opens in regular Notepad using the right-click menu and the “Open with...” command, and there you should find the password tag (usually it looks like Password), then delete the contents and just click on save document (for quick saving you can use the combination Ctrl+S).
But if you have a large number of sheets, this method may not work, so you should initially resave the document in XLSX format, then open it using any 7-Zip) and extract the contents to any convenient location.
Next, you need to find the Worksheets folder in the unpacked directories, where all the sheet files in XML format(Sheet1, Sheet2, etc.). After this, for each such object, you should repeat the editing operation in the text application. Only the sheetProtection tag is searched first, and then everything that is between the combinations “
Third party programs
Finally, the question of how to remove a password from an Excel file can be solved using special script programs like Password Remover.
After installation, the application integrates its own commands into office applications (not only Excel, but also all others). To remove the password, when you first start with the built-in VBA script, you first need to agree to the execution of the macro, then open the file, and use the Straxx command in the main editor panel. Here you need to understand that the application is not a hacker and does not work on the principle of randomly selecting the desired combination. It disables file protection from the inside, so it is easy and safe to use. Reviews from users who have used this script in practice indicate that the entire process of removing protection takes about two minutes.
