How to break Excel Workbook Password Protection without software | MS Excel Tutorial

In Excel, you can password protect Excel workbook to prevent users to changing the structure of the Excel workbook. Excel workbook protection prevent users from viewing hidden worksheets, adding, deleting, moving, hide/unhide worksheets.

Imaging one day you forgot your Excel Workbook Password and you have no way to remember. In this video I will show you how to break the Excel Workbook Password Protection without using 3rd party software or VBA.

PS: If you got a window prompt asking for password when you are opening an Excel file, then that's what we called Excel application password, which cannot be cracked. You will need to ask the owner for the password.

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[eqalaaa]

Why I couldn't find that structure lock in notepad?

[renu]

Hi Jie, thanks for posting the video explaining how to unlock the excel sheet when a password is forgotten. I am in a situation where my excel workbook is locked and couldn't unlock it with the steps shown in this video. When I convert the excel workbook to .zip and try opening with win rar, I get an error message "This archive is in either unknown format or damaged". I used 7zip to extract and was successful. But, I didn't see the directories that were shown in this video. I am curious to know if there is any other way to unlock the workbook.

[kushsaraswat]

Hi,
I have a problem after changing the extension the zip file is not even opening nor extracting .
Pc Specs
Windows7
Office 2007
Everone is saying it is working but in my case it isn't working.

[imranayari]

Thank you so much. It also successfully work for me for Excel 2010; although, I removed the protection on the specific protectected worksheets in the worksheets folder and not on the workbook.xml

[Jordan-jrsu]

Didn't work for me, it shows Encrypted Info/Packages one I view the zipped folder structure

[MrUnderEstimated]

im using notepad and i cant seem to find lockStructure anywhere, i even tried opening it with Wordpad still no luck :/

edit: i figured out that the workbook is not locked. however the sheets are. i unlocked the sheets with the same zip, delete and unzip process.

[emiliorojas]

Beautiful, it worked like a charm. My scenario was a protected worksheet, not the workbook, and I followed JJ's steps, and bingo!!!! All the options when you right click on the sheet tab of the protected worksheet were all available. But worksheet is still password protected...
But I could copy it and paste it on a new sheet and dumped the protected sheet and worked fine. Thank you

[erlanmiranda]

i'm sorry but here say "your file is damaged" when I put in zip.
So what can I do ?

[minlee]

Hi, I forgot my password of an excel file and tried to unlock by using your method. But when I open the zip file, it looks different from your video. My file shows 'EncryptedPackage'. I have no idea how to open this. Can you help? Thanks.

[Scrap]

You are the most awesome person who has ever lived. You've saved me a week of work!!!

[Cameron-Cc]

The swallowing on the mic is a lot bro. But thank you

[SnapSmartFacts]

it worked perfectly. how can i also remove worksheet protection? Thank you so much.

[AlishSafarli]

in 2021, When you zip Excell workbook which is password protected, and try to open it, it says _"The archive is either in unknown format or damaged"_ . So anyone gets this error? I see it works in old times, but I am not able to open the zipped excell file now.

[Bangkok-travel-ideas]

I followed your example but had to go down one more level to get to the worksheets, opened up the file in Notepad and searched for Protection and I removed a line of code between <> and then did the same for the second xml file. It all works fine...thanks

[kaesuma]

It worked perfectly and I am amazed how simple it is to remove the protection. My Excel is version 2016. Thank you Jie Jenn.

[ptahrightknowledge]

Yow mi gee you save my life with this HACK. Much appreciated

[raenandliam]

Hi When i open the zip file, it said the file is damaged or corrupt..are there any ways to open the excel file?

[llalbwansingh]

Hey Jie - Shouldn't it be like - How to Remove Forgotten Excel Sheet Password (NOT WORKBOOK) I have problem with Workbook Password, can you help ...?

[PopHowden]

Similar to my excel version but there is no 'lockStructure' in file.

[busyP]

Great Video - But it doesn't work - When I make the file a zip file and look into the folder it only has the compressed xls file ??