The feature in Excel allows worksheets to be protected from editing, copying, and deleting. The problem is that anyone may forget their password. If you are looking for some special tricks to unprotect the Excel workbook without a password, you’ve come to the right place. In Microsoft Excel, there are numerous ways to unprotect Excel workbooks without passwords. This article will discuss three methods to unprotect Excel workbooks without passwords. Let’s follow the complete guide to learn all of this.
How to Unprotect Excel Workbook without Password: 3 Easy Ways
In the following section, we will use three effective and tricky methods to unprotect Excel workbooks without a password. This section provides extensive details on three methods. You should learn and apply all of these to improve your thinking capability and Excel knowledge.
1. Remove Password to Unprotect Excel Workbook
Here, we have a password-protected Excel worksheet. By entering the password, we can easily unlock the worksheet. However, we want to unprotect the Excel workbook without a password.
It is easy to remove the password from the Excel worksheet using simple steps. A screenshot of the Excel file containing the password-protected worksheet can be seen below. Check the File Name Extension option on the View tab of the Windows File Manager. Let’s walk through the steps to unprotect Excel workbooks without a password.
📌 Steps:
- Firstly, right-click on the Excel file and select the Rename option.
- Next, add the .zip extension after removing the .xlsx Press Enter.
- Afterward, open the zipped folder by double-clicking it, and then open the xl folder.
- Open the worksheets folder in the xl folder.
- Now, right-click the sheet1.xml file or press ‘Ctrl+C’ on the keyboard to copy it.
- Then, use ‘Ctrl+V’ to paste it into your required folder.
- So, you have to open sheet1.xml in notepad.
- Open the Find search box by pressing ‘Ctrl+F’.
- Now, in the Find what box, type protection. Press Enter to find out the word.
- After that, select the “sheetProtection” tag.
- Next, you need to drag the mouse to the right until you come to the end of the “/>” tag.
- Remove the selected line from the code, then save it with ‘Ctrl+S’.
- Then, press ‘Ctrl+C’ to copy the modified file.
- Now, with the Copy and Replace option, paste this file to its original destination.
- Next, rename the zip folder. To make it back into an Excel file, remove the .zip extension and add the .xlsx extension.
- Finally, open the file and click to allow it to be viewed without a password.
2. Utilizing Google Sheets to Unprotect Excel Workbook without Password
We can also use another method to unprotect the Excel Workbook by using the Google Sheets. Let’s walk through the steps to unprotect Excel workbooks without a password.
📌 Steps:
- Firstly, in your browser, open a new Google Sheet by clicking on Blank.
- Afterward, Click on the Import option from the File menu.
- Next, select the Upload option and click on “Select a file from your device”.
- Now, select the file and click on Open.
- After that, click on Import data.
- As a consequence, you will be able to import your excel file into Google Sheets.
- Next, go to the File menu, select Download, and choose Microsoft Excel(.xlsx).
- Then, save the file to your desired location and rename it.
- Finally, open the file and click to allow it to be viewed without a password.
3. Unprotect Workbook by Copying Contents to a New Workbook
It is the fastest and quickest way to unprotect the Excel workbook without passwords. Let’s walk through the steps to unprotect Excel workbooks without a password.
📌 Steps:
- Firstly, select the protected sheet in the protected workbook.
- Next, press ‘Ctrl+C’ or right-click the mouse to copy the worksheet.
- After that, in a new workbook paste it by pressing ‘Ctrl+V’.
- Finally, open the file and click to allow it to be viewed without a password.
Download Practice Workbook
Download this practice workbook to exercise while you are reading this article.
Conclusion
That’s the end of today’s session. I strongly believe that from now you may unprotect the Excel workbook without a password. So, if you have any queries or recommendations, please share them in the comments section below. Keep learning new methods and keep growing!
Related Articles
- How to Unprotect Excel Workbook with Password
- How to Remove Password from Excel File
- How to Recover Excel File Password
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