🔓 Unprotect Excel Sheets in Seconds (When You Don't have the Password)

In this video, I will show you a simple way to unprotect worksheets in any Excel file without the need for any software or website.
It's pretty easy and takes less than a minute.
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[@IvanCortinas_ES]

Thanks for the tutorial. You can also keep the code, without having to delete it, and change the numbers 1 to 0 (turning off the password) in the section: sheet = "1" by sheet = "0" objects="1" by objects="0" scenarios ="1" by scenarios ="0" Thanks Sumit!

[@trumpexcel]

Thanks for the tip Iván 👍

[@c.o.d.y.langton]

It's been ages since I learned something novel about Excel. Thank you.

[@MisiuPO]

Its good to hear this still exists as I have been using it for 8 years and wondered if they ever going to plug it :) it actually helped me gain a lot of respect in the company.

[@skipbechtold3735]

You’re a genius. This came at the perfect time. Thank you.

[@ranjan4495]

I don't need to listen to the content to give a like, I have been following trump excel for years now, the content quality is such great that giving a like at the end is like playing devil's advocate. Thankyou for all your qualitative content.

[@trumpexcel]

🤗

[@serdip]

Absolutely BRILLIANT! Thanks for sharing!

[@trumpexcel]

Glad you found the video helpful 🙂

[@glenningram9962]

Worked awesome!!! Nice job ..... thank you!!!

[@Froschkoenig751]

Nice, easily convinced to subscribe after watching one video by you!

[@jpblauvelt]

Excellent information. I’m now a subscriber ❤

[@ym10up]

Cool. I use to unlock sheets by running a macro but I've since lost that code. Good to have a backup method. Thank you

[@ranganathanvelayudam5869]

Thank you very much, it's so simple

[@GoodlyChandeep]

Excellent Production Summit!

[@trumpexcel]

Thanks Chandeep.. Good to see you in the comments section 🙂

[@evfusion4094]

Clever yet quite simple (when you know how). Thank you.

[@jhankhanajani9314]

Thank you Sumit for showing this trick !!!, Bit surprise, with this trick, suddenly felt like, no data is secure. However your explanation is pretty clear. Thank you.

[@Turbonuts78]

Fantastic as always. Thanks a bunch!!

[@claudegiguere8731]

Very glad to know this! Thanks Sumit 👍👍👍

[@nononsense129]

HI Sumit, is there any way to open a password protected Excel file?

[@WekomVideos]

Genius, thank you Sumit!

[@raotouqeerahmad7594]

Awesome. Thank you.

[@sumardjo]

Wuiiii Genius trik thanks for sample file I can follow your video thanks very much!!!

[@markstewart7559]

This is a really useful video, thank you. I am curious why you need to make a copy of the .xml file and take it outside the main folder to edit it when you’ve already made a copy of the whole file?

[@trumpexcel]

I made a copy and placed the XML file outside the ZIP folder, as within the ZIP folder, it doesn't allow me to open the file in Notepad or Wordpad.

[@subhraghosh4050]

Many thanks for sharing

[@bhaskaryenagandula8712]

Amazing one Sumit. Thanks for sharing.

[@Navneetsingh-ud2ru]

Simply WOW 😲

[@michelbaudoinca]

Great trick ! Thx Sumit !!!

[@tammimayson8059]

This is great! I forgot the password of a sheet the other day and had to recreate it 🤦‍♀ is there a way to unprotect a workbook like that too?

[@chrispascual1188]

Brilliant tutorial!!! But, does this also work on word, ppt etc.?

[@dominiquecolin4716]

Great video. Thanks a lot

[@trumpexcel]

Glad you found the video helpful 🙂

[@sanjayshrestha3013]

Great tips I will try mine too and let you know the result

[@19peris87]

Great Work! Thanks Summit!!!!!

[@lorenakademar5267]

Thank you a lot! great tip!!

[@ashroff17]

Thank you very much!

[@BytebroUK]

Very useful, thanks!

[@cornelbejenaru3523]

Wow! Amazing! Thanks a lot!

[@andysingh905]

How to open a password protected file, if you forgot the password?

[@pilotpawanc]

Yeah that will be far more interesting to know

[@SSPanesar]

That would be a challenging task...

[@piksodriver]

​@@SSPanesarthere is macro that do it as brute force

[@SSPanesar]

@@piksodriver gr8 to here that.

[@Derekzparty]

Either use hashcat or johntheripper. I've mainly used johntheripper for cracking zip files, but they can do many more file types.

[@seifeddine1163]

cannot work in window 8.1 or previous version of windows, i tested with 7zip and WinRAR, the files doesn't appear

[@lalitkumarkashyap]

superb 🙏thanks a lot.

[@piyushrvyas]

Thanks a lot. That was a great tool

[@SAIDARIFSYAL]

thanks a lot, dear sir

[@dermotbalson]

You can also remove sheet passwords by brute force because they are hashed into 8 bits (as I recall). This means there are many other passwords which will open the sheet. Just write a program (in VBA or anything else) to test random passwords until you find one that unlocks the sheet. It usually takes only a minute or two. (This is completely different encryption to that used to protect whole workbooks, which is extremely difficult to crack).

[@johnnycbad]

This used to work but Microsoft changed the hash algorithm a few years ago. Notice in the part where the sheet protection code is removed, there's a bit that mentions SHA-512. That's the new algorithm.

[@yagneshbhatt8399]

Though you made it appear simple. I have some challenges. I have a file which is protected as xlsm. I was unable to convert this file into zip file. The second challenge was that though the file was xlsx and it did get converted into zip file. The xml file in the folder worksheet could not be converted into word pad. Please advise how to handle this.

[@sanjayshrestha3013]

Thank u it’s finally done

[@JAG.65]

thank you!

[@mohammedismail2198]

How come MS make such option which is easily tampered with? What is the use of giving password to the worksheet if it can be tampered like this....Though good information......

[@qwertyui2827]

Very nice. Well done. Is it the same procedure when the file is password protected to open ?

[@trumpexcel]

It works only when you have the worksheets that are protected. Won't work when the entire file is locked or the VBA project is locked

[@apeel2008]

I’m wondering if looking at the code if there is a way to see what the original password is without deleting it. I assume it is inherent in the HashValue. Any way of translating the HashValue to the actual password?

[@trumpexcel]

I tried researching on that a little bit but couldn't figure out how to get the original password back

[@apeel2008]

@@trumpexcel OK. Thanks!

[@peter.mccullagh]

A hash is a one-way transform. You cannot translate it back to the original password I'm afraid

[@apeel2008]

@@peter.mccullagh Thanks. Makes sense for security purposes.

[@jmwill2005]

Is there also a way to unprotect the entire workbook, when it got protected with "Protect Workbook" command in the "Review" section of the Ribbon?

[@thewelder3538]

No, there's no way to do that without brute forcing the AES encryption.

[@StevenBrener]

good stuff!

[@Aarthy-h2p]

I couldnot delete the paticular sheet (duration - 3:24). It shows some error. what can I do now?

[@ericmkobe4554]

hy man.i have been try to remove password from excel for a week now,can you please help because am trying to follow this tricks but still failing.

[@tedmoy]

Awesome video!!! Time for a coffee break Mr. Bansal

[@trumpexcel]

Thanks Ted 😊☕

[@robertweigl7201]

a note sometimes error messages can occur, when reopening, the renamed file, but the content is still accessable

[@amirkeren8386]

Any similar method for Word documents?

[@pabeader1941]

Nice one. Can you also do it for protected VBA code?

[@ladislavbertha6789]

I do it as shown in the video, but when I open it, the files that are there like sheet1, sheet2, sheet3 are not displayed

[@VeryProudIndian]

Pl also show how to unprotect a protected MS word doc

[@ajitbarik4071]

Wow Really 👌

[@jowiepoet9972]

Does this work for encrypted VBA too? (Xlsm with a protected VBA script)

[@ChalMadinaOnline]

but its not showing on my laptop .. i tired it but its not working

[@joseluismatam.1660]

Todo seguro, analógico o digital, tiene o llega a tener su cerrajero

[@ksumar]

Brilliant 💯 Was was the password: "SHA-512"?

[@trumpexcel]

No, this wasn't the password 🙂

[@ANILKUMAR-cj4mi]

excellent

[@tideypaws]

That's for the oldest possible version of excel?

[@raffibarsoumian1075]

Sneaky but it works:)

[@tideypaws]

isn't there something for a newer file, where the data is encrypted?

[@trumpexcel]

I did this with Excel M365 file. Works well for all the new versions

[@lorduakiti]

its work for xlsx file

[@UNPhantom93]

Didn’t work. I changed the extension but didn’t work

[@faridrahman6821]

same, i havent too.

[@thelammas8283]

And whilst you watched this, I cleaned out your entire bank account 😂😂

[@Bisdako2013]

This will work on Word protected file?

[@sjcsystems]

This saved a lot of trouble today. I'm subscribing...

[@productionmate]

Does it work for Mac Excel?

[@trustncube3888]

good day i cant see the work sheets

[@ಪ್ರಶ್ನೋತರ]

It seems to work for everyone but It dose not work for me. I don't know what I am doing wrong with it.

[@gaurav4uk]

Good

[@JeffFox-ke5jw]

How to open a password protected file, if you forgot the password?

[@kurienillirickal7195]

Zip file cant open. Comes as invalid file

[@DEDEPLDEDE]

Unfortunately Windows cannot open the zipped file

[@SuperVikas45]

Can we do it for vba codes.

[@mariotabet3938]

Do you think this would work with VBA security too? I know, I’m too lazy to try after a long day!

[@alanmonaghan9194]

I'm pretty sure it doesn't work with VBA security as they are binary files rather than XML files.

[@mariotabet3938]

@@alanmonaghan9194 that was helpful. Thanks!

[@CalinSabau]

That's cool 😎

[@IceTobSmoKeo]

Why is mine .dat instead of .xml?

[@RhetoricalLanguage]

Hi Sumit, I can't seem to download the excel file shown in the video. It downloads the pdf of 51 tips.

[@trumpexcel]

You can get the file from here - www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/1zvawx0zpvi4jn9dk3i4j/Call-Center-Dashboard.xlsx?rlkey=n2u8rp8h2vil4r3gboh4yzo42&dl=1

[@RhetoricalLanguage]

@@trumpexcel Thank You very much

[@catito_meister]

After i changed the extension to zip, i cant open the zip file. It says is invalid. Anyone has the same issue?

[@myticktack]

It need to be a .xlsx file (new Excel format) not a .xls file. if you have a .xls file you need to covert it first into a .xlsx file.

@@myticktack I have the same issues and mine is .xlsx

[@MichaelToub]

Wow!

[@kandinovich]

Numpang nitip gorengan.

[@James-rh4nt]

Now, how do I get into a password protected spreadsheet?

[@yashgamerz5054]

zip file not opening

[@kenyarborough812]

protecting a worksheet is not the same as encryption. It you save a excel spreadsheet with a password, removing the xml tag would do nothing.

[@trumpexcel]

Yes, this method is only when thr worksheet is protected. Doesn't work when the entire file or the VBA code is protected

[@alanparkinson549]

"The Compressed (zipped) Folder ... is invalid" when I try opening the zip file.

[@erbalumkan369]

Will this work for a .xls file as well?

[@trumpexcel]

Seems to be working only with xlsx file format. With XLS, it doesn't open the ZIP folder for me

[@jax.8.10]

My worksheet doesn't show .xml instead, it stated .bin

[@trumpexcel]

It's likely that in your file, the VBA code is locked. Is it an XLSX file?

[@jax.8.10]

@@trumpexcel It is in xlsm

[@sanjayshrestha3013]

I converted excel file into Zip but after zip folder created it’s again same excel file inside the folder

[@stephenl5693]

By chance did you right click on the excel file and choose to send to zip? That would give the symptom of what happened to you. Instead ensure filename extensions are turned on so that you can see the .xlsx at the end of your filename then rename the file by replacing the .xlsx to .zip

[@gadgetsfunnel2886]

Same problem

[@gadgetsfunnel2886]

​@@stephenl5693 did but still same issue

[@rajanvadakkepat]

How to open protected vba excel sheet

[@trumpexcel]

If the VBA project is locked, there is a separate process for it. Will make a video on that too.

[@jansunwai-suda-upigrs-up6462]

not working

[@Gjbsecurityandalarms]

Just saved my bacon

[@Packhorse-bh8qn]

Excel has 3 levels of protection. I have a macro that unlocks two of them in seconds. This is even simpler.

[@badhombre4942]

It's a feature not a bug.

[@tekmepikcha6830]

OMGGGGG 👏👏👏👏

[@niltmp7126]

Scary

[@charlesrodriguez2176]

Thank you for all that you do. This is a touchy subject - you're essentially showing how to hack a way around password-protected data. You used the reasoning of a "forgotten password" or "inheriting an Excel file from someone that is no longer accessible". It's like teaching how to bypass a home's security "just in case one loses their house keys". You understand that this information can/will be used to by a criminal element. Again, thank you for sharing your videos - I've learned a great deal in the past. This video is not one I can support/promote though. The real complaint is to Microsoft for this disappointing Excel flaw.

[@trumpexcel]

The idea is to share a way in case people get stuck (which happens a lot). The security of Excel files is pretty week, and I always mention this whenever I talk about protecting Excel sheets and files using built-in measures. The security is more about making sure people don't accidentally end up changing the formulas or data. For someone who needs to really password protect a file, they should always go for more than the built in solution. But I respect your sentiment.

[@binot-ol6pd]

@trumpexcel... In that case where genuine reason to protect the vba files are absolutely crucial, can you please share a video how to protect them beyond standard / built-in methods ? Your help without any doubt is very much appreciated