if you use excel password protection
you'll be amazed at how easy it is to
remove them in this video i'm going to
cover the different types of password
protection available in excel and how to
remove them if you happen to have
forgotten your password
i'll also show you which is the most
secure way to protect your data now
before we get started i trust that you
will use these techniques for good and
not evil make sure you're only cracking
passwords for your own files
the first time for password we can apply
is at the sheet level and we do this via
the review tab
and then protect sheet
this enables you to protect one sheet at
a time in the workbook preventing users
from entering data in specific cells
moving objects etc
i'm going to enter a password here but
notice it is optional
and i need to re-enter it
now if you happen to have forgotten this
password it is super easy to remove it
and with that protection in place if i
try and edit a cell or enter something
in a cell that's protected i get an
error
now the first thing you'll want to note
is which sheet in the file contains the
password protection and notice there are
three sheets in this file the second one
is called sales data and that's the one
that i've protected
now if you've rearranged the sheets in
your file after inserting them the
numbers for the sheets won't be in the
same order as your tabs so in that case
to find the sheet number right click on
any of the sheets and go into view code
this opens the vb editor and you can see
at the top i've got the actual sheet
numbers and their corresponding sheet
tab names so make a note of the sheet
number that you've protected we'll close
the vb editor and we'll close the excel
file
and i'll just go into my browser this is
the file that has the password
protection at the sheet level
i'm going to make a copy so holding
control i'm just going to left click and
drag
and i'm just going to work in the copy
just in case i make a mistake
here i want to change the file extension
if you can't see the file extension dot
xlsx go to the view tab and make sure
file name extensions is checked
to change the sheet name you can right
click and choose rename or use the
keyboard shortcut f2
and then all we need to do is make this
a zip file press enter it gives me a
warning
yes i'm sure i want to change it that's
fine
now it's a zip file i can drill down on
the folders
and i want to go into the excel folder
and then into worksheets
and here is my xml file for sheet number
two
in another browser window i'm just going
to make a copy of the xml file left
click and drag it across
and that's going to enable me to edit it
to edit this xml file you can open it in
notepad or any text editor i have
notepad plus plus installed so that's my
default and this is basically the code
for that sheet i'm going to ctrl f
because what i want to do is find the
text sheet protection
and you can see it there behind let's
close this down
this is the code that relates to the
password protection for the sheet what i
want to do is select all of it between
the less than and greater than tags
and simply press the delete key to
delete it
let's save this xml file close notepad
and all i need to do now is copy this
back to my zip folder
replacing the one that's there
so that copied across i'm going to go
back up to the file level
there's my zip file all i need to do is
f2 rename this xlsx again
yes i'm sure i want to change it
now it's an excel file open it up and
the password protection will be gone
let's check on the review tab protect
sheet is no longer grayed out or on
protect sheet
and if i try and type something in
i can edit the cells
so you can see sheet protection at this
level is not very secure let's take a
look at workbook protection
workbook protection is also applied via
the review tab and then protect workbook
it enables you to protect the structure
of the workbook and it prevents sheets
being added or removed hidden and
unhidden and that type of thing
i can enter a password here it is
optional but i'm going to enter one
and if i now try and right click
you can see i can't insert delete rename
move or copy any sheets now the process
for unprotecting a workbook is similar
to unprotecting worksheets so let's
close the file
and i'll go into my browser
we'll take a copy of the file this is
the one that has my workbook protection
and we're going to rename it
dot zip
yes i want to change it
and then we're going to drill down
into
excel
until we find the workbook dot xml
and i'm just going to make a copy of
this into another folder
so that i can open it in my text editor
so this is the underlying code for the
workbook i'm going to ctrl f and here i
want to find workbook protection
you can see it's highlighted the code
behind again i want to select everything
between the opening and closing greater
than and less than tags and delete it
save the file
close the editor
and then copy it back across to the zip
replacing the one that's there
and then let's go back
and we're going to rename this back to
xlsx
yes i'm sure i want to change it
let's open it up
and you'll notice on the review tab i
can protect the workbook which means the
protection must be removed let's test it
out i can right click and you can see i
can insert delete rename move and copy
etc
like sheet protection workbook
protection is not terribly secure
all right let's move on and we'll look
at read-only protection
read-only protection is set up when you
save the file so i'm going to f12 to
file save as this file
and then under tools general options
i can set a password to open and i can
set a password to modify so i'm going to
look at password to modify first so i'm
going to enter a password here this is
going to force the user to open the
workbook as read read-only unless they
know the password so i'm going to save
that and replace the existing file
let's close it down
and then we'll look at opening this type
of protective file so double click to
open it
and i'm presented with a dialog box
where i have to enter a password for
write access
or i can open as reader only if i open
the file in read-only mode i can go into
the file menu and save as a copy without
the password alternatively i can remove
the password
to remove password protection
i'll make a copy of the file holding
down control left clicking and dragging
and we'll f2 to edit and rename this zip
yes i want to change it
and let's open the folders
again in excel
and then this is the workbook file i
want
let's copy it across
out of the zip and double click to open
it in my text editor
now here i'm looking for file sharing
there is selected there and i want
everything between the opening and
closing tags
and simply press delete
and save it
close it down
and copy it back across
replacing the one that's there
let's rename this.xlsx back to its
original format
and let's open this file and you'll see
i'm not prompted to enter a password it
just opens
now if your file is password protected
and there's no option to open it in
read-only mode for example you get this
dialog box and you can see there's no
read-only button and you've forgotten
your password
unfortunately you cannot use any of the
techniques we've just tried let's take a
look at what happens if you do try to
use these techniques so let's make a
copy
and i'm going to f2 to edit it into a
zip
yes i want to change it
and if you try and open this type of
file you get this error
password protection at the file level
that is when you go file save as
and tools general options and you enter
a password here
is the most secure way to protect your
data
however it's still not a hundred percent
secure you can purchase third-party apps
to unlock excel files just be sure
you're being ethical and only unlocking
your own files unfortunately i've never
needed to remove a password at this
level so i don't have any first-hand
experiences of apps that i can recommend
so you have to weigh out whether it's
worth your time and money to pay for a
service to hack into a file that you've
forgotten the password for or whether
you're better off just recreating that
file altogether
i hope you found this tutorial useful if
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thanks for watching
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