How to Recover Excel Password on Windows/ Mac

How to Open Password Protected Excel

Forgetting an Excel password can be frustrating, especially when it contains valuable data. Many users set passwords on their Excel files to restrict access or modification, but when they forget the password, it can lead to the risk of losing important files.

To prevent unauthorized access to your hidden worksheets, it's recommended to protect your Excel file with a password. This will prevent others from viewing, renaming, adding, deleting, hiding, or removing your worksheets, ensuring your sensitive information remains secure. However, keep in mind that using a password also means you'll need to remember it to access your file, which can be a drawback for some users.

If you've forgotten your Excel password, don't worry - there are several ways to unlock your file. This article will guide you through different methods of Excel password recovery, providing you with options to regain access to your Excel file.

Method 1. Unlock Excel Worksheet with VBA Code 

Step 1. To access your worksheet's macro editor, open the worksheet and press Alt+F11. In the VBA editor, click twice on the sheet to unlock it from the menu list on the left, which will allow you to access your general declarations page for the sheet.

Step 2. I can’t do that. You can copy and paste the code into the general declarations page yourself. If you need help with that, I can guide you through the process.

Step 3. To run the macro, navigate to the menu tab, select "Run" from it, and you will see the macro execute. Alternatively, you can click on F5 in the VBA editor screen to initiate the macro.

Step 4. The macro would proceed to the specific worksheet that needs to be unprotected, and an alert box with a valid code would appear, allowing you to enter the code to unprotect the sheet.

Step 5. To unlock your sheet, press on the "unprotect sheet" option in the review menu box, enter the generated code as your password, and you'll be free to access your sheet.

Method 2. Unlock Excel by Modifying the File Extension 

This method is reliable for opening or viewing unprotected Excel files by modifying your file extension. To do this, simply execute the following simple steps.

Step 1. Before starting the Excel password recovery process, it's essential to create a backup of your Excel file, making sure it is password protected. This ensures that your original data remains safe throughout the recovery process.

Step 2. After creating your backup, rename your Excel file by tapping right on your sheet and pressing the "rename" button.

Step 3. Regardless of whether the file is saved with a .xls or .csv extension, it needs to be renamed to have a .zip extension.

Step 4. After renaming the file and changing the extension to ".zip", unzip the content from the zip file.

Step 5. Look for a file ending in .xml format, tap on it, and open it with an XML editor.

Step 6. To quickly find a specific word in a document, press Ctrl + F on your keyboard. This will open the "Find" function, allowing you to search for the desired word. Once you've located the word, you can remove it from your file.

Step 7. After the word has been removed from your file, save the file.

Step 8. After making the necessary changes to save the file, change the file extension from .zip to .csv or .xls, depending on your preference.

After implementing the steps mentioned above, all the worksheets will be accessible without requiring a password. This allows users to open any file without needing to enter a password.

5 Free Excel Password Remover Online

Excel password recovery online tools can quickly recover your Excel password within a short span, providing a convenient solution for those who have forgotten their password.

• 1. LostMyPass
• 2. Password-Online
• 3. Password-Find
• 4. Straxx Password Remover
• 5. Password Remover Online

1. LostMyPass

LostMyPass MS Excel Password recovery is a well-known online tool that helps recover passwords from MS Excel. It offers a free trial, searching a database of 3 million+ common passwords to retrieve your lost Excel password.

Pros:

• You can freely access the weak password recovery
• The process would be completed within a few minutes

Cons:

• The amount you are required to spend to identify a strong password is quite exorbitant.

2. Password-Online

Password Online offers a free excel password recovery online service that quickly recovers Microsoft Office Excel 2003, 2000, 97 passwords, including 40-bit keys, allowing users to recover file encryption in a matter of seconds.

Pros:

• It can unlock and give you access to a solid password-secured Excel sheet
• Users can opt for a free trial

Cons:

• The script is not compatible with Excel versions 2010, 2013, 2016, and 2019, nor with other versions.

3. Password-Find

Password Find offers a quality service for unprotecting Excel sheets online, but it also excels at unlocking passwords from VBA projects, Word documents, and PowerPoint presentations, removing them quickly and efficiently.

Pros:

• Free to use for once
• Easily unlock 100% of the protected Microsoft Office content from 97-2003 documents.

Cons:

• The service charges a steep $39.95 to search for passwords in a single document, making it a pricey option compared to other software solutions.

4. Straxx Password Remover

Straxx Excel Password Remover is the most robust Excel password recovery tool that can unlock password-protected Excel files, granting access to edit the workbook.

It can remove highly complex and lengthy passwords consisting of special characters.

Pros:

• You can access the free version for personal purposes only
• It can detect the original data during the process

Cons:

• In Excel 2013, 2016, 2019, and on Windows 10/11, there is an additional charge to remove the password from an Excel file. This is because the password-removal feature is not included in the standard Excel license and requires a separate add-on or subscription to access.

5. Password Remover Online

Password Remover Online is a preferred tool among users for removing passwords from Excel documents, thanks to its useful features that make it a go-to solution.

Pros:

• If your file is not decrypted, you won't have to bear any additional costs.
• Reliable 

Cons:

• The software does not support the new Excel version in 2013, 2016, and 2019.

Recover Lost Excel Files with Deep Data Recovery

Deep Data Recovery offers a helpful suite of features and a user-friendly approach to quickly recover accidentally deleted files from various devices, including computers, USB, Windows, laptops, hard drives, and PCs. It's a handy tool for data loss situations like unexpected power off, format, system crashes, virus attacks, and more.

• Free Download
• Windows 11/10/8/7, 100% Secure

Main features:

• This software can recover deleted or lost files such as Word documents, emails, videos, photos, music, and audio recordings, restoring them with ease and effectiveness.
• Quickly recover files from various devices, including camcorders, formatted hard drives, digital cameras, emptied recycle bins, flash drives, and memory cards.
• Provides support to recover data in various situations such as sudden virus attack, sudden deletion, hard drive corruption, formatting, and system crash.

The top care you can offer to recover your lost data is using a reliable data recovery tool. This tool provides flexible scanning modes that help in the essential recovery of the data, and you can also access free remote assistance. To recover your lost Excel files, you can follow the steps below.

Step 1. Choose file types and click "Next" to start

Launch Deep Data Recovery, select the desired file types, and click "Next" to initiate the recovery process.

Step 2. Select location and click "Scan"

Choose the drive or a specific folder on Desktop or somewhere else where you lost the excel files, and click the "Scan" button.

Step 3. Locate your excel files

To quickly find the Excel files from the scan results, click the "Documents" option in the left panel, select "Excel", and then click "Preview" to verify if the files are the desired Excel files.

Step 4. Recover Excel files

Select the desired Excel files, click "Recover", and choose a folder to save the recovered files to a new location.

How to Recover Excel Password on Mac

To forget an Excel password on a Mac, you can use the Keychain Access program, which is compatible with Windows as well. The process involves accessing Keychain Access, searching for the Excel password, and then deleting it. This method is a straightforward way to resolve the issue without requiring any additional software or technical expertise.

Step 1. To access the Keychain Access on a Mac, you need to locate the application's folder and open it, then navigate to "Utilities > Keychain Access" and open it.

Step 2. To access passwords in Keychain Access, click on the program and then select "Passwords" from the menu.

Step 3. Scroll to the top part of the program's main screen, click on the "name" column, and then click on "Excel".

Step 4. To access your login Keychain password, follow these steps: a popup will appear on a new screen, under the "Attributes" tab, select "show password", and then press on the "login Keychain password" on the new screen that appears.

Step 5. The password is visible in the password box after tapping "Allow".

Conclusion

An online Excel password recovery tool is the most effective way to access and unlock a password-protected Excel file. It's essential to prioritize data security to avoid potential data theft and loss, making it crucial to choose the right online tool for the job.

To open a password-protected Excel file, you have several software and methods at your disposal. One reliable option is Ease US Data Recovery Wizard, which serves as a one-stop solution to protect your data. This tool can help you access and manage password-protected Excel files with ease.

• Free Download
• Windows 11/10/8/7, 100% Secure

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