Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Unprotecting an Excel file


I was at work the other day and as the IT guy I was asked if I could access and unprotect coworkers excel spreadsheet, which was protected by a password. It took me a while of researching how excel stored the information inside of the spreadsheet but I soon found out that it is stored as a XML file. If you know anything about a XML file it can get manipulated in windows with Notepad. With this said I am going to walk you step by step through the process of removing the password in an Excel spreadsheet.
 
1st. Locate the 2007 or 2010 Excel file in question.
 
2nd. Make a copy of that file by right clicking and clicking copy, then place it on your desktop.

3rd. Right click the file on you desktop and click rename.

4th. Rename the files extension from .xls or .xlsx to .zip


5th. Using a zip program either 7zip, winrar, winzip open the zip file.
6th. Open the xl folder.
7th. Open the worksheets folder
8th. Make a copy of the .xml file and paste it to your desktop.
9th. Right click the .xml file and click edit.


10th. You can either look for the tag <sheetProtection password="C71F" sheet="1" objects="1" scenarios="1"/> or hit Ctrl+F to bring up the find option and type in sheetProtection. Some of these .xml files can be massive.
 

11th. Delete in between the quotation marks after password= "C71F" to make it look like this "". This is not the password and will not unprotect the Excel file it is the password after being hashed. It should now look like this <sheetProtection password="" sheet="1" objects="1" scenarios="1"/>

12th. Click file and click save or hit Ctrl+S to save the .xml file, then close.

13th. Right click the .xml file on you desktop and copy it and then right click and paste the file back into the worksheets folder inside of the .zip file.
                                         Make Sure To Copy And Replace When Prompted
14th. Close the .zip file and rename it back to .xls or .xlsx if you are using office 2010.

Final. Open the Excel file and click the Review Tab at the top and click unprotect Sheet and you file is now unprotected and you are now able to customize and reprotect you spreadsheet.

I hope this helped you and remember to only do this if you are asked or it is your file. It is illegal to tamper with other people's computer files.
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6 comments:

  1. Dr. AnneJanuary 24, 2013 at 5:19 PM

    Well done, Jeff! And yes, one could get themselves in quite a fix, but you did warn them. :-)
    Dr. Anne

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownJanuary 24, 2013 at 7:19 PM

    Thank you, I wasn't going to post this but I decided to because I know most people that use this will use it for the right reason and the ones that don't were warned like you stated. Also I know it can be very useful in the right situation. Thanks again

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownMay 23, 2014 at 7:24 AM

    plz if i have several xml file
    how code i do this quickly ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. bloggerMay 20, 2015 at 3:23 AM

      There is a service, that does all those steps automatically and unlocks xlsx-files, see http://unlock-excel.tk/ its free and ads free

      Delete
  4. harrysouOctober 6, 2016 at 9:40 PM

    Software of Excel password cracker nice for cracking and recovering Excel password with xls, xlsx, xltm, xla, xlm, xlam, xlsm and xlsb
    Read More: http://www.excelunlockertool.com/

    ReplyDelete
  5. UnknownFebruary 15, 2018 at 10:13 PM

    Easy solutions for recovery Excel file password via PDS Excel Password unlocker Tool. This application gives the smart technology to scan all lost MS Excel file password and quickly open XLS or XLSX Excel file password.

    Download Software: http://perfectdatasolutions.blogspot.in/2018/02/how-to-crack-excel-sheet-password-if-it.html

    ReplyDelete

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