How To Unlock Password Protected Microsoft Excel Workbooks

Remove Excel Passwords How many times have you forgot password of a Microsoft Excel workbook/sheet and then had a sinking face?

Microsoft Excel has a protection feature that allows users to lock a workbook or sheet with a password. When the Excel workbook/sheet is protected with a password, any user attempt to edit data shows an error message


Microsoft Excel Error Message When User Tries To Edit Password Protected Sheet

Here comes an handy Excel plug-in called Excel Password Remover 2008 which strip the password protection from Excel workbooks and spreadsheets. You can install the plug in by downloading it from here. Once installed, it adds options Unprotect workbook and Unprotect sheet to Excel’s Tools menu, and choosing these options does what they are meant to.

Download Excel Password Remover

Note: To install the plugin you should set security level of Macros to medium by following the menu Tools->Macros->Security in Microsoft Excel.

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13 thoughts on “How To Unlock Password Protected Microsoft Excel Workbooks”

  1. This WORKS in Office 2007 too.

    Steps-
    a. Download the ‘Password.xla’ file to your desktop
    b. Open the file.
    c. You will get a popup to ‘Enable Macros’. Click Enable.
    You will get a confirmation that the Add-in has been installed. Click OK.
    d. Go to File> Open and open the file which has protected sheet or protected workbook.
    e. Once you have opened the workbook, Go to extreme right icon in ribbon- ‘Add -Ins’.
    f. Under ‘Add – in’s, you should be able to see 2 options each for ‘Unprotect Sheet’ and ‘Unprotect Workbook’. Click on them to remove the protection. At the bottom left corner of your Office 2007 window, you should be able to see the time taken to unprotect the workbook as ’00:00:17′ etc. Once unlocked, you will get a confirmation.
    g. Save the workbook.

    Regards,
    Ajay M

  2. It Works and its the fastest tool . So far I have tried couple of method including using the run macro but all of the failed.

    This one WORKS great !! Bravo a.

  3. I WANTS TO UNLOCK MY EXCEL ENTIRE WORK SHEET PASSWORD BUT NO CAN GIVE SATISFYING SOFTWARE.
    PLZ SUGGEST ME IF U KNOW BUT FOR FREE.

  4. The deal is, this one may work with excel 2007 with VBA converter hotfix. I can see the addon but I don’t manage to open my password protected file. I get dialogue box to enter password and that makes this menu inaccessible.
    But it DOES work with Excel 2007, install VBA converter hotfix.

  5. This plugin works fine in Excel 5.0, Excel 2000, XP and 2003. As few visitors mentioned in the above comments, this plug in does not work with Excel 2007.

    Excel 2007 user: convert the file to Excel 2003 and then run this macro.

  6. Unfortunately, the book/sheet password remover addin from straxx.com doesn’t seem to be working for Excel 2007. Any other free resource?

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