Unprotect an Excel Sheet

5/19/2018 Unprotect an Excel Sheet

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How to Unprotect an excel she

THis document will tel you how to unprotect an

In case of a password protect worksheet you are

know the password to unprotect the sheet just fol

Press ALT + F11 or click on View Code in Dev

et without password

excel spread sheet without having the password

unable to Edit the data on the Excel Sheet. If you do not Reme

llow the below simple steps.

elopers Tabs

ber the Password or do not


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In the Above White Space Enter the below Code

Sub PasswordBreaker()

'Breaks worksheet password protection.

Dim i As Integer, j As Integer, k As IntegerDim l As Integer, m As Integer, n As Integer

Dim i1 As Integer, i2 As Integer, i3 As IntegeDim i4 As Integer, i5 As Integer, i6 As Intege

On Error Resume Next

For i = 65 To 66: For j = 65 To 66: For k = 65

For l = 65 To 66: For m = 65 To 66: For i1 =

For i2 = 65 To 66: For i3 = 65 To 66: For i4 =

. Do not change the code just copy paste:

r

r

To 66

5 To 66

65 To 66


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For i5 = 65 To 66: For i6 = 65 To 66: For n = 32 To 126

ActiveSheet.Unprotect Chr(i) & Chr(j) & Chr(k) & _

Chr(l) & Chr(m) & Chr(i1) & Chr(i2) & Chr(i3) & _

Chr(i4) & Chr(i5) & Chr(i6) & Chr(n)

If ActiveSheet.ProtectContents = False Then

MsgBox "One usable password is " & Chr(i) & Chr(j) & _Chr(k) & Chr(l) & Chr(m) & Chr(i1) & Chr(i2) & _

Chr(i3) & Chr(i4) & Chr(i5) & Chr(i6) & Chr(n)

Exit Sub

End If

Next: Next: Next: Next: Next: Next

Next: Next: Next: Next: Next: Next

End Sub

Now Click on the Run Button or press F5:


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And there you go the sheet is unprotected for yo

This Message is contains the password which ca

u now. Also you would be getting a message in the pop up win

n be used to unprotect the other sheets in the same workbook.

ow.


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Keywords: Excel, password, unprotect Suggest keywords Doc ID: 28850

Owner: Marlee P. Group: UW Green Bay

Created: 2013-02-28 15:16 CST Updated: 2013-04-24 13:06 CST

Sites: UW Green Bay

Feedback: 5763 1685 Comment Suggest a new document

Hack into a protected Excel 2007 or 2010 Workbook

September 26th, 2011 by datapig Leave a reply

I'm back from the Power Analyst Bootcamp in Washington DC - and of course, it was a success. 37 of the finest analysts attended the 2-dayevent, where we shared our passion for Excel, deli meats, and spicy tricks and tips. In the end, everyone left with a bag full of new techniques

that will make them better analysts.

.


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While I was gone, there seems to have been a flurry of activity and questions in reference to hacking into a protected workbook. A couple of

years ago, I posted a slick technique you can use to hack into a protected 2007 worksheet. Apparently, hacking in a protected workbook is also a

highly desired talent. So today, I'll walk through the steps to hack into a protected workbook.

.

Excel 2007 and 2010 files are essentially zipped packages that contain XML files. This means that if you take an xlsx file and change the

extension to zip, you'll be able to see all the xml documents that make up your Excel file. Not only that - you can change the content and

properties of an Excel 2007 file simply by manipulating the XML documents that make it up.

.

That's right. You can remove workbook protection simply by applying a simple edit to the xml within the Excel file.

.

When you encounter a protected workbook, it's typically locked down so that you can't change the structure of the workbook. This means youcan't unhide sheets, delete tabs, add sheets, or change the workbook structure in any way.


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.

So let's start hacking.

.

Step 1: Make a backup of your file in case things take a turn for the worse.

Step 2: Change the file extension to zip.

.

Step 3: Extract the contents of the zip file.

Step 4: Go to the extracted files and navigate to the xml for the target sheet (found in the 'xl\worksheets' directory)


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.

Step 5: Open the target sheet's xml document using an XML editor (I use a free editor called XML Marker)

Step 6: Find the 'workbookProtection' tag and remove the entire line.


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.

Step 7: Save the edited xml document and replace the old xml document found in the original zip file.

Step 8: Change the extension back to xlsx.

.

At this point, your workbook is unprotected!

.

.


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A couple of notes:

1. Any password you see in the XML file is not the real password, nor will it work if you try to use it. It's worthless.

2. It seems as though this will only work on workbooks that have been protected for structure only. If the workbook has been protected for

structure and 'Windows', something prevents you from even opening the Open XML package.

3. You obviously cannot do this for Excel 2003 or any kind of xls files.

4. See this linkto hack into a protected worksheet.

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Unprotect an Excel Sheet