Manual Guide to Unprotect Excel

Real, technical, manual method to remove Excel protection when you forgot the password. No additional software.

Important Warning: This guide only works for protected sheets/workbooks. If your file has a password to open, no manual method exists - it's real AES encryption.

Manual method step by step

1. 1

   Make a backup copy

   Duplicate the original file and always work with the copy. An XML error can corrupt the file.

2. 2

   Show file extensions (Windows)

   Go to View → Show → File name extensions. This lets you see .xlsx

3. 3

   Change extension to .zip

   Rename file.xlsx to file.zip. Windows will show a warning, but it's safe.

4. 4

   Open the ZIP

   Use Windows Explorer, 7-Zip or WinRAR. You'll see several folders, we need xl/worksheets/

5. 5

   Identify the correct sheet

   You'll see sheet1.xml, sheet2.xml, etc. Each corresponds to a sheet. sheet1.xml isn't always the protected one.

6. 6

   Open the XML

   Open the file with Notepad, Notepad++ or VS Code. Look for the sheetProtection tag

7. 7

   Remove the protection

   Completely delete the sheetProtection line. Don't leave traces or delete other things.

8. 8

   Save correctly

   Save the file keeping UTF-8 format. Don't change extension or add spaces.

9. 9

   Change back to .xlsx

   Rename file.zip to file.xlsx

10. 10

    Open in Excel

    Open the file normally. The sheet will be editable, without restrictions and without password.

Compatibility table