Excel: Forgot the sheet protection password
The password for sheet protection in Excel is quickly forgotten. To be able to edit the table again, the sheet protection must be removed. We'll show you a trick on how to remove the password for it.
Forgot password: Remove sheet protection in Excel
To open the table, you need the 7-Zip or WinRAR extractor program.
- Right click on the file name and select "Rename".
- Delete the file extension "xlsx" and enter "zip" instead.
- Tip: If the file extension is not displayed, click on "View" in the Explorer and check "File name extension".
- Open the table with a "right click" via the menu "7-Zip" - "Open".
- Open the folder "xl" in 7-Zip and then "worksheets".
- Here you may find several files named sheet # .xml (# stands for a number).
- Copy the file sheet1.xml to the desktop.
Step 2: Remove the password / sheet protection
To delete the password from the Excel spreadsheet, open the "sheet1.xml" file with a text editing program such as Wordpad.
- Open the sheet file and look for the term "protection" (CTRL + F).
- The passage you are looking for starts with "" (see picture). Delete this passage completely.
- Save the file and copy it to the archive (Excel file opened with 7-Zip).
- Confirm the copying process with "Yes" and then close 7-Zip.
- Finally rename the changed file from "xlsx" to "zip". Now you can open the file again without sheet protection.
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If you ever forget the password for an entire Excel file, this practical tip will help you.