Forgot my protected password - need help to unlock an important sheet!

Copper Contributor

Hi Excel community!

 

I need some help asap. I have a very important sheet for work that I had put a protected password on over a year ago and I forgot it because I have been furloughed from work and not on the sheet in about 4 months!! I have tried the following code that I found online however my mac just gives me a spinning wheel and doesn't seem to be executing like the way I have seen it online. Someone please help I really need to get back into this sheet otherwise it is going to take me 4+ hours to re-make the sheet!

 

Sub PasswordBreaker()
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)
Exit Sub
End If
Next: Next: Next: Next: Next: Next
Next: Next: Next: Next: Next: Next
End Sub
12 Replies

Open with Google Sheets.  Save as a Google sheets file so it changes it from excel. Open the sheet and enter some random character resave.  Open with excel and resave as an excel file password should be gone.

 

Google sheets can not open the excel file because excel file has password which I forgot. How you can transfer the excel file to Google sheets? Please advise, thank you

@Jsullivan0395 

If I may add, here are some links that might help you.

Password options

How to unprotect the excel sheet if forgot the password

 

NikolinoDE

I know I don't know anything (Socrates)

@cery1999 I just emailed to myself opened on my phone

To be more exact I long clicked and ope. With

@Danteexavyer 

Sorry, you tried on your own protected excel file or the one I attaced of mine to replied?  

You are saying that by using Google spread sheet? Where did you "long clicked"? I tried on Google spread sheet, the first step is blank box to ask me the password. I entered 123, the google shows the wrong password, just doesn't let me to open. Where should I take a long clicked and ope? Please help. thank you

@cery1999 as I said I emailed them to my self and opened on my phone here's some pictures of what to look for. There are three difrent ways on my system to select what program opens them perhaps this is a little above your user level. With a computer it would be right click and open with. Then selecting program *google sheets* you would first have to navigate to the root folder that the document is saved in of course. If that doesn't help I don't really know how to convey to you besides suggesting a YouTube video on opening  documents with programs besides the default. 5heres also Linux if that's the case let me know and I can provide instructions I use a different program in linux for this. 

Ahh I see the disconnect your on a Mac I am unfamiliar with them it's the one O.S. I don't use. Once again if your phone is android then the pictures will show you
This is strainge, how my excel changed to Mac system. My computer is Win10, My cell is Android, I never had a apple computer and iphone. Oh, the thing's getting complecated. I'm using iSeePassword software to search my password, now, 7 days/nights already, it still run under a......

May I have a instruction of Linux from you? I viewed some youtube about remove a password, it's unsuccessful. Thank you very much.


Change out the apt install function with what ever package manager the distro your using provides like dnf, rpm, pacman. If you can't figure out the package manager let me know the version of Linux you will be running and I can write a script.

Press Control+Alt+T. This opens a terminal window.
2
Update the repository. To make sure you're downloading the latest version of xmlto, the tool yo'ull be using to convert the XML file to plain text, run the command sudo apt update.
3
Install the xml2 package. To install xmlto, run the command sudo apt install xmlto.
4
Navigate to the directory containing your XML file. You'll use the cd command to do this. For example, cd /usr/local/files takes you to a directory called /usr/local/files.
5
Run the command to convert the file to another format. The command you'll use depends on the type of file you want to create:

xmlto pdf myfile.xml converts to a PDF.[3]
To convert to another file type, replace pdf with the desired file type, such as: html, htmlhelp (HTML help file), javahelp (Java help file), dvi (text DVI file), man (Unix manual pages), txt (plain text), ps (postscript), xhtml, fo

@Danteexavyer 

Thank you very much.  Let me study and try this way.