I have an Excel workbook.
Two years ago I set password protection option for one of the sheets. Now I have forgotten the password. Is there any way to recover the password of that Excel sheet?
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Sign up to join this communityI have an Excel workbook.
Two years ago I set password protection option for one of the sheets. Now I have forgotten the password. Is there any way to recover the password of that Excel sheet?
You cannot recover THE password, but you can unprotect the sheet(The hash used to protect the sheet is quite prone to collisions in the old versions of excel, so generating a collision is quite fast here).
There are scripts availale the will brute force open your sheet within a very short amount of time.
Take a look here for example: http://www.theofficeexperts.com/VBASamples/Excel02.htm
Here's the code:
Sub PasswordBreaker()
'Author unknown but submitted by brettdj of www.experts-exchange.com
Dim i As Integer, j As Integer, k As Integer
Dim l As Integer, m As Integer, n As Integer
Dim i1 As Integer, i2 As Integer, i3 As Integer
Dim i4 As Integer, i5 As Integer, i6 As Integer
On Error Resume Next
For i = 65 To 66: For j = 65 To 66: For k = 65 To 66
For l = 65 To 66: For m = 65 To 66: For i1 = 65 To 66
For i2 = 65 To 66: For i3 = 65 To 66: For i4 = 65 To 66
For i5 = 65 To 66: For i6 = 65 To 66: For n = 32 To 126
ActiveSheet.Unprotect Chr(i) & Chr(j) & Chr(k) & _
Chr(l) & Chr(m) & Chr(i1) & Chr(i2) & Chr(i3) & _
Chr(i4) & Chr(i5) & Chr(i6) & Chr(n)
If ActiveSheet.ProtectContents = False Then
MsgBox "One usable password is " & Chr(i) & Chr(j) & _
Chr(k) & Chr(l) & Chr(m) & Chr(i1) & Chr(i2) & _
Chr(i3) & Chr(i4) & Chr(i5) & Chr(i6) & Chr(n)
ActiveWorkbook.Sheets(1).Select
Range("a1").FormulaR1C1 = Chr(i) & Chr(j) & _
Chr(k) & Chr(l) & Chr(m) & Chr(i1) & Chr(i2) & _
Chr(i3) & Chr(i4) & Chr(i5) & Chr(i6) & Chr(n)
Exit Sub
End If
Next: Next: Next: Next: Next: Next
Next: Next: Next: Next: Next: Next
End Sub