Unlocking password protected Excel files

Ever got into any of the following situations
  • You have password protected an Excel file and have subsequently forgotten the password
  • Got an excel file that is password protected and you want to access the contents of the file
Today I was in the first situation and after a bit of googling I came across the following application Excel Password Remover 2008 which is an add-in to excel.

It's very simple to use this tool
  • Download the add-in password.xla and save it at any location on your hard disk.
  • Load the add-in into excel by going to the following menu option Tools -> Add-Ins. Click on Browse in the window that pop-ups and find the password.xla file that is saved on your hard disk. It will then appear in the add-ins Available list. Make sure the checkbox next to the name of the add-in is checked before you click on ok. Once you click on OK you should get two new menu items in the tools menu Unprotect sheet and Unprotect workbook.
  • Open the file that you want to unprotect (note that you cannot use this tool to open excel files that are password protected to even open them. There are other suggested tools on the website but I have not tried them out). Click on Tools -> Unprotect Sheet and after a few seconds you will get a message that the sheet is unprotected.
  • Once you have unprotected all the sheets save the file to your hard disk and all the password protection would have been removed.
There is a negative side and positive side to such a tool
  • Password protecting excel worksheets is really not helpful as you can easily break the password.
  • You don't have to worry if you forget the password as there are tools such as this that can break it. The worry was there as Microsoft never gave a method of recovering the password if it was forgotten. I think password protection is a half baked solution they implemented in Excel.

Comments

mberi1981 said…
Hi, I wanted to refer to your blog in my blog which I am writing about “How blogging, Online visibility is going to help Outsourcing and create more business.” I understand that the question would be why your Blog as it is totally disparate and yes that is the reason I wanted to highlight that there are enough individuals who have a passion of sharing online and Blogs can be channelized for professional growth and not just personal networking or as a personal channel. I would post my blog under an interesting competition going on with a chance to win $1000 (http://www.limeexchange.com/contest/details/2). Is it going to be alright with you?
10:01 PM, May 13, 2008
Anonymous said…
@mberi1981 : Please go ahead and refer to my blog in your post for limeexchange. All the best in the competition.

All the best once again and I would appreciate it if you can send me a copy of the article and if it is in line with my thoughts I will post a link to it on my blog if it is okay with you.

I managed to find your blog @ its new home (http://lakshvivek.com) and it looks very impressive. It would be good if you can make a note on your google profile that this is the new home of your blog so that it can be found easily.
12:20 PM, May 14, 2008
Unknown said…
It is very easy through Excel password unlocker software to unlock password protected Excel files. Excel password recovery software smartly recover Excel password.
6:04 PM, April 04, 2014
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Online Encumbrance Certificate in Andhra Pradesh

You can get an encumbrance certificate online in AP now. In order to get it you have to perform the following steps. Go to the website http://igrs.ap.gov.in/ Click on Citizen Services -> encumbrance -> Search Click on Yes in the screen that appears Fill in the entries that appear in the search screen. You will have to get quite a few details in so it will help to have a copy of the registration document available with you. Once you finish entering all the details click on Submit. It will then go to a new page with the list of items that matched the search displayed. Click on the check box of the list of encumbrance certificates that are needed and click on submit. This will open a new popup window with the encumbrance certificate. You can then print this certificate. What is this useful for Anyone buying new property can go and verify the current owners of the property that is shown on this certificate in the column Name of PartiesExecutant(EX)&Claimants(CL) with the copy of
Read more

Cricket Grounds in Hyderabad

This is a repost of the article I published on the 10th of Jan, 2008 as I have added a new ground - Lahari Resorts. View Larger Map In this post I will try and update the list of cricket grounds that i know in Hyderabad. The grounds that I have listed till now are MCH Play ground, Ameerpet Francis (Do not have the contact number but go to the ground and ask for him). The charges are Rs. 1100 for the ground. They do not charge for anything more. You get the ground from 9:00 AM to 4:00PM. The ground is small. Welfare Center, Sanath Nagar Dhanraj Babu (+91 9394556356). The charges are Rs. 1100 for the ground. They charge you an additional Rs. 500 for the mat and Rs. 100 for cleaning and drawing lines and stuff. They are supposed to give you the ground from 9:00 AM to 4:00PM but what they do is that they pocket extra money from another team wanting to play and give the ground out to them for the remainder of the day assuming that you won't play for the whole day. So what happened th
Read more

Problogger guest post

Today my guest post appeared on problogger.net . I wrote about 9 Tips to Start Blogging Successfully . Let me give you a bit of a background about where this article originated from. I have been blogging for close to 3 years now but I have been doing it seriously only for the last 2 months. I then analysed what were the things that I should have done in order to have become a successful blogger based on what I have noticed on the ones that have become successful. The final analysis of my study is what I put into that article and it is what I am trying to implement since the last 2 months. Reading the comments it was exhilarating to notice that some of the readers actually thought Darren was writing the post :-). It was also nice to notice that many readers agreed with my analysis and that strengthened my belief that what I have written if followed will work. How did I get to do a guest post on problogger.net ? A little more than a week ago Darren invited bloggers to do guest pos
Read more