Excel Secret : Unlock a Workbook or Worksheet without the Password

Have you ever forgotten the password to an improtant Excel workbook or worksheet? Or maybe you've inherited a file from a colleague who has left the company and you don't have the password to access it.
Don't worry, in this video I'll show you how to unlock Excel workbooks and worksheets without a password. We'll walk through step-by-step instruction on how to bypass password protection and gain access to your files.
With this Excel hack, you'll be able to unlock any workbook or workshet in no time at all.

[@azrobbins01]

Great tutorial!

[@paryadasineh1929]

Thanks for this helpful video, it works well 👍🏻

[@anac3652]

Thanks mate

[@EmakhosiniSiyakhuleka]

Great stuff, DOPE 🔥

[@frankbruno3487]

unfortunately after i change the file to zip i get an "invalid". it doesnt show extraction. whats going on?

[@excelgoat]

Are you sure you have windows explorer set to show file extensions. Hard to know without seeing it but it’s possible the file is now named .zip.xlsx rather than the .xlsx being removed and replaced.

[@lydethful]

A life saver!

[@ovidiustalinescu1222]

GOAT

[@Evil5639]

This does not work for excel protected workbooks, only protecting elements in a worksheet.

[@excelgoat]

I’m not sure what you mean? There are two types of protection evidenced in this video one of them being workbook protection which isn’t just sheet elements but includes workbook level protection like unhiding sheets etc. Both unlockable and the different methods shown in this video. Please explain more

[@stevielopezmua]

You know I'm pretty good at following directions but when I did this step by step it didn't work :( We need to zoom!

[@excelgoat]

Sorry to hear that can you give me any more details as to what went wrong so I can help you troubleshoot ?

[@pamelalammersen6722]

This is not working for my .xls workbook that is encrypted with a password I dont remember. The steps are clear and I have been able to do things like this before, but …when I renamed the file to .zip and double click the zipped file, I get an error saying the file is not valid, If I go to my 7zip folder and double click from there, I don’t see any file content. It looks like the data is just the encryption files.. What am I doing wrong? Please :-) t: [6]DataSpaces D Encryptedpackage C) Encryptionlnfo Many Thanks for your time :-)

[@excelgoat]

Hi Pamela, sorry you’re struggling with this. Gonna be hard to work out without seeing it but a few questions came to mind. Depending on which version of windows you are on can I just check you’ve got the option ticked (or unticked) to show file types in windows explorer. I’ve seen it before where it looks like a file has been renamed but it’s actually called… for example workbook.zip.xls so it hasn’t actually changed format it’s just the name that has changed so that would be my first thought. Before trying to unzip it can you confirm the icon itself changed, if it’s still showing an excel icon (or something else) id say it’s definitely not become a zip yet. Other things to try would be adding a password to a copy of another existing workbook (take a backup of course) and try an xlsm or xlsx if you can before confirming if it’s the xls format that’s the problem. If you don’t have the option for xlsm or xlsx then there used to be an excel addin which worked on older versions of excel and definitely worked for xls previously might be worth trying to find that but years since I’ve used it. The other thing it could be and I notice you mention encryption is im not sure this method works to unlock an encrypted workbook. It works for worksheet, workbook encryption (applied from the top menu) but not … as far as I know with the encrypt with password method.