Forgotten your password? Here's how to remove all worksheet and workbook protection in Excel
If you’ve ever thought Excel’s worksheet and workbook protection was a safe way to stop unwanted activity — think again.
It’s very easy to remove both. However, this isn’t such a bad thing if you’ve forgotten your password!
𝗥𝗘𝗠𝗢𝗩𝗘 𝗪𝗢𝗥𝗞𝗦𝗛𝗘𝗘𝗧 𝗣𝗥𝗢𝗧𝗘𝗖𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡
1. In File Explorer, go to View ﹥ Show and enable ‘File name extensions’.
2. Select the file, press F2, and change the file extension to .zip.
3. Select ‘Yes‘ in the Rename window.
4. Double-click the zip file to open it.
5. Go to xl ﹥ worksheets and find the XML file that corresponds to the worksheet you want to unlock.
6. Drag the file onto the desktop to make a copy.
7. Right-click this file and select ‘Edit in Notepad’.
8. Press Ctrl + F and search for ‘sheetProtection’.
9. Delete the entire ﹤sheetProtection … /﹥ tag.
10. Save the file and close the window.
11. Drag the file from desktop into File Explorer.
12. Choose ‘Copy and Replace’.
13. Change the zip file’s extension back to .xlsx.
14. Select ‘Yes’ in the Rename window.
15. Open the workbook, and worksheet protection should be removed, giving you free rein to edit the worksheet as you please.
𝗥𝗘𝗠𝗢𝗩𝗘 𝗪𝗢𝗥𝗞𝗕𝗢𝗢𝗞 𝗣𝗥𝗢𝗧𝗘𝗖𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡
The process is the same as worksheet protection, except step 5 requires you to find the workbook.xml file in the xl folder, and you need to search for ‘workbookProtection‘ in step 8.
𝗙𝗜𝗡𝗔𝗟 𝗪𝗢𝗥𝗗𝗦
Hopefully, this will convince you not to depend on Excel’s built-in password protection for important files.
While a basic layer of security is better than nothing, if you have something you don’t want anyone to access, don’t store it in the workbook in the first place!
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By @andrewcharlesmoss
#exceleration #excel #globalexcelsummit
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