Excel remove write protection. How to remove password in Excel? Three working ways to remove your password. Removing the password from an Excel document manually

Any user of Microsoft Excel and other similar programs can easily set a password on an important spreadsheet document, which will prevent information from being viewed by persons for whom the contents of the document are not intended.

Unfortunately, quite often there are situations when a user sets a password, and then he himself cannot access the document for the simple reason that the password was completely forgotten. Fortunately, you have the opportunity to remove protection from the sheet.

Method 1: using standard Windows tools

Actually, this method is suitable if you do not want to use third-party programs that allow you to remove passwords from documents. It should be noted that in this case much more action will have to be taken.

Method 2: Using Accent OFFICE Password Recovery

And, of course, you can also remove the password from an Excel document using special utilities that greatly simplify this task. In our example, we will turn to the help of the Accent OFFICE Password Recovery utility.

If you know other ways to remove a password from a Microsoft Excel document, please share them in the comments.

Installing protection on Excel files is a great way to protect yourself both from intruders and from your own erroneous actions. The trouble is that not all users know how to unlock the book so that, if necessary, they can edit the book or even just view its contents. The question is even more relevant if the password was not set by the user himself, but by another person who passed on the code word, but the inexperienced user does not know how to use it. In addition, there are cases of password loss. Let's find out how you can remove protection from an Excel document if necessary.

There are two types of Excel file locking: workbook protection and sheet protection. Accordingly, the unlocking algorithm depends on which protection method was chosen.

Method 1: Unlocking the Book

First of all, let's find out how to remove protection from a book.

Now, when opening a book, you will no longer need to enter a password and it will no longer be protected.

Method 2: Unlocking the sheet

In addition, you can set a password on a separate sheet. In this case, you will be able to open the workbook and even view information on a locked sheet, but you will no longer be able to change cells in it. When you try to edit, a message appears in the dialog box informing you that the cell is protected from changes.

In order to be able to edit and completely remove protection from the sheet, you will have to perform a number of actions.

After this, the protection will be removed and the user will be able to edit the file. To protect the sheet again, you will have to install its protection again.

Method 3: removing protection by changing the file code

But sometimes there are cases when the user has encrypted the sheet with a password so as not to accidentally make changes to it, but cannot remember the code. What is doubly distressing is that, as a rule, files with valuable information are encrypted and losing the password to them can be costly for the user. But there is a way out even from this situation. True, you will have to tinker with the document code.

1. If your file has the extension xlsx(Excel workbook), then immediately proceed to the third step of the instructions. If its extension xls(Excel 97-2003 book), then it should be recoded. Fortunately, if only the sheet is encrypted and not the entire workbook, you can open the document and save it in any available format. To do this, go to the tab "File" and click on the item "Save as…".



2. The save window opens. Required in the parameter "File type" set the value "Excel workbook" instead of "Excel 97-2003 book". Click on the button "OK".



3. An xlsx book is essentially a zip archive. We will need to edit one of the files in this archive. But to do this, you will immediately need to change the extension from xlsx to zip. Using Explorer, go to the hard drive directory in which the document is located. If the file extensions are not visible, then click on the button "Arrange" at the top of the window, in the menu that opens, select the item "Folder and Search Options".



4. The folder options window opens. Go to the tab "View". We are looking for an item "Hide extensions for registered file types". Uncheck it and press the button "OK".



5. As you can see, after these steps, if the extension was not displayed, then it appeared. Right-click on the file and select the item in the context menu that appears "Rename".



6. Changing the extension from xlsx on zip.



7. After the renaming is done, Windows treats this document as an archive and you can simply open it using the same Explorer. Double-click on this file.



8. Let's go to the address:

   file_name/xl/worksheets/

   Files with the extension xml This directory contains information about sheets. Open the first of them using any text editor. You can use the built-in Windows Notepad for these purposes, or you can use a more advanced program, for example, Notepad++.



9. After the program has opened, type the key combination on the keyboard Ctrl+F, which causes the internal search of the application. Enter the following expression into the search window:

   We look for it in the text. If we don’t find it, then open the second file, etc. We do this until the element is found. If multiple Excel sheets are protected, the item will be located in multiple files.



10. After this element is detected, we delete it along with all the information from the opening tag to the closing one. Save the file and close the program.



11. We return to the directory where the archive is located and again change its extension from zip to xlsx.

Now, to edit an Excel sheet, you won't need to know the user's forgotten password.

Method 4: Using Third Party Apps

In addition, if you have forgotten the code word, the blocking can be removed using specialized third-party applications. In this case, you can remove the password both from the protected sheet and from the entire file. One of the most popular applications in this area is Accent OFFICE Password Recovery. Let's look at the procedure for resetting protection using this utility as an example.

As you can see, there are several ways to remove protection from an Excel document. The user must choose which one to use depending on the type of blocking, as well as on the level of his abilities and how quickly he wants to get a satisfactory result. The method of removing protection using a text editor is faster, but requires some knowledge and effort. Using specialized programs may require a significant amount of time, but the application does almost everything itself.

How to unprotect an Excel sheet? This task faces many users of this office program. This spreadsheet editor offers office workers a wide range of possibilities: from simple to sometimes complex calculations. First of all, it is indispensable for the work of accountants and economists, financiers and bankers who are forced to make a lot of calculations, as well as work with various databases, and set automatic filling of cells. According to statistics, this is one of the most popular office applications in the world at the moment. The first version of Excel appeared in 1985.

Simply put, it is a programmable spreadsheet calculator. However, for ordinary users, a table editor can also be very useful. For example, when transmitting important information, you can place it in an Excel document, which will contain protection, that is, a password. It is noteworthy that either a single sheet or the entire book can be protected.

Thus, the Excel program allows you not only to generate and format data correctly and in an orderly manner, but also to protect it during transmission by using a password.

How to access a protected sheet?

You can remove protection from an Excel sheet by selecting the appropriate option in the Tools - Protection menu

To unprotect a sheet in an Excel document, you need to select the menu, then “Tools,” then “Protection,” then the “Unprotect Sheet” category. If the data located in this particular part of the document was previously protected by a password, the system will prompt you to enter it. After this, all functionality will be available in full. If the entire Excel workbook is protected, then you should proceed in the same way.

How to remove protection from a sheet if the password is unknown?

However, the password has a tendency to get lost and forgotten. Excel does not offer the option to restore it. There is a way out of a situation like this, when you need to unprotect a sheet without knowing the password. And not alone. There is no need to use specialized programs. You can unprotect an Excel sheet using an archiver and notepad. This is easy to explain. An MS Excel document is a container with data. Its basis is an XML file, which contains all the information and settings of the original text document. To get information from there, change the file resolution from to ZIP. And then open it with the archiver you have: winrar, 7-zip or others.

After this, you need to find the XML file along the path file.xlsx/xl/worksheets/sheet1.xml.

Pull out the file you're looking for and open it with a simple text editor.

Next, you need to find the sheetProtection substring in the text, which is an indicator of whether or not the sheet has protection. This entry is precisely an indicator of protection. Then the entire block with this entry must be deleted in the tags. Now all that remains is to change the file extension back to XLSXS and open it without knowing the password using Ms Excel 2007 or 2010. This way we remove the password.

As you can see, anyone can handle an office document. Enough patience and attentiveness. Don’t be afraid to learn something new, interesting, convenient in work and everyday life, including discovering office programs and spreadsheet editors.

In some situations, users need to unprotect a sheet in Excel that has a password set to protect it from changes to the contents of the document. We need to gain access to edit or change an Excel workbook sheet without a password.

Excel is part of Microsoft Office, which is widely used in organizations and enterprises. The application creates spreadsheets for accounting, production or other needs.

Often different people have access to the same document for production reasons, to collaborate on documents, etc. Unintentional or, conversely, intentional changes to an Excel document can lead to dire consequences, because in this case, many hours of work will have to be done again redo.

Protecting a sheet in Excel

In the popular Microsoft Excel program, there are different degrees of document protection, including password protection of the sheet. This means that a protected sheet of an Excel workbook cannot be edited or changes made to it, because the program has a function for protecting a separate sheet of a document.

The most reliable method to protect an Excel document is to open the file. In this case, another person will not be able to access the Excel workbook without entering the correct password.

To remove protection from a workbook sheet, you will need to enter a password, after which the protection of the Excel sheet will be disabled, and the contents of the document can be changed.

In some situations, it is necessary to remove protection from an Excel sheet without knowing the password. For example, if the user forgot the password to protect an Excel sheet, or the password written down on paper was lost. How to remove Excel protection without knowing the password?

There are several ways to open Excel for editing and making changes if the workbook has a password set for the sheet:

• by removing the section of code responsible for protection using an archiver;
• creating a copy of the document using the online service Google Sheets.

The instructions are suitable for use in MS Office programs: Microsoft Excel 2016, Microsoft Excel 2013, Microsoft Excel 2010, Microsoft Excel 2007.

How to remove a password from an Excel sheet using an archiver

The first way we will change the extensions of the MS Excel file in order to open the file using the archiver, and then manually delete the section of code that protects the Excel sheet from changes.

Follow these sequential steps:

1. Open Explorer in the “View” tab, check the box next to “File name extensions”. Or enable display of file names from the Control Panel, through Explorer Options.

1. Then you need to change the file extension of the Microsoft Excel document (book). Change the Excel file extension from the native ".xlsx" to the ".zip" archive format.
2. In the warning window that opens, agree to rename the file extension.

A file in the "ZIP" format can be opened with the system's built-in tool using Windows Explorer, or using a third-party archiver, such as WinRAR or 7-Zip. Both options are no different. In this article, I open a file in Explorer.

1. After opening the file in Explorer or an archiver, go to the "xl" folder and then go to the "worksheets" folder. Here you will see the files “sheepN.xml” (N is the serial number of the Excel workbook sheet, depending on how many sheets were created in this Excel workbook).

1. Select the serial number of the book sheet on which the protection is located. Copy the “sheepN.xml” file to your computer’s Desktop (don’t close Explorer yet).

The easiest way is to open a file in "xml" format in a browser, but in the browser we will not be able to make changes to the open file. Therefore, we will use the Notepad text editor, which is available on any computer.

1. Open the file “sheepN.xml” in Notepad. Enter the "Edit" menu, select "Find...", or press the keyboard keys "Ctrl" + "F" simultaneously.
2. In the “Find” window, in the “What:” field, enter the expression: “sheetProtection”, and then click on the “Find Next” button. The found expression in the Notepad window will turn blue.

1. Next, you need to remove this section of code (you will have other characters and numbers inside the code) with the hash and salts: