How to unprotect Excel sheet without password?
Excel users set password on their Excel sheets to make the file data secure from other users. They protect the worksheet with a password when they do not want other users to edit the data and worksheet structure without their permission. So, any user who does not know the password of the respective workbook, they cannot modify it.
To make a password-protected sheet editable requires a password before making any change in the data or structure of the worksheet. If the user does not know the password, he fails to do it. This chapter will define the methods to unprotect the Excel sheet with and without a password.
Protected worksheet vs Protected workbook
Do not get confused between a protected worksheet and a protected workbook. When you protect a workbook, a whole worksheet with all worksheets inside it will get protected. On the other side, when you protect a worksheet, an individual worksheet will get protected.
Following are some operations that can and cannot be performed on Excel worksheet and Excel workbook.
Protected worksheet
- When an Excel sheet is protected, that particular worksheet structure gets locked.
- When an Excel sheet is protected, you cannot enter, update, modify and delete the data of the protected sheet.
- If the users want to make changes in protected worksheet data, they have to unprotect the workbook using a valid password to perform these operations.
- However, users can perform operations with other sheets on the same workbook.
- When a workbook is protected, users can add, delete, remove, move, hide, unhide sheets of that workbook except protected one.
Protected workbook
- When a workbook is protected, workbook structure gets locked.
- You cannot perform such operations add, delete, remove, move, hide, unhide sheets of that workbook.
- The users have to unprotect the workbook to perform these operations.
- However, user can perform operations with sheets data when a workbook is protected, like – enter, remove, update sheets data.
Unprotected worksheet without password
An Excel user does not write something inside the protected sheet. A sheet can be protected either using a password or without password. They have to unprotect the sheet to make it editable. Without unprotecting the sheet no one can edit it.
A password-protected requires password while unprotecting the sheet. On the other side, sheet protected without password does not require password. We will describe both methods to unprotect the sheet without password.
These three methods we have discussed below:
Method 1: Unprotect the protected sheet
Method 2: Unprotect the password-protected worksheet
Method 3: Unprotect the password-protected sheet without password
Method 1: Unprotect the protected sheet
It will be very easy for the users if the worksheet is protected without using password. It means that the sheet is locked, but the user did not use password while protecting it. In that scenario, any Excel user can easily unprotect the worksheet without having password. They just need to follow a few simple steps and the worksheet will be unprotected.
A worksheet protected without password does not require password while unprotecting.
See the steps to unprotect the worksheet that is protected without password –
Step 1: Open the targeted Excel document that contains a protected sheet inside it. Here, Sheet2 is a protected worksheet.
Step 2: If you try to write or modify something in this protected worksheet, you will get the following warning message –
Hence, we have to unprotect this sheet to make it editable.
Step 3: On the Excel ribbon, navigate to the Review tab.
Step 4: You will see Unprotect Sheet option inside the Protect group that was earlier Protect Sheet. Click on this option.
It will visible only if the sheet is protected.
Tip: If a sheet is not protected, you will not find the option Unprotected Sheet. You will find it as Protect Sheet instead of that.
Once the Unprotect Sheet option is clicked, the current sheet will be unprotected. It will not ask for the password while unprotected.
Step 5: You can now edit, delete, enter, and modify data on this worksheet.
If the sheet is password protected, it will ask for the password that was used while protecting the worksheet.
Note: You can find the Unprotect Sheet option by right-clicking on the protected sheet.
Method 2: Unprotect the password-protected worksheet
See the steps to unprotect the worksheet that is protected using password –
Step 1: Open the targeted Excel document that contains a protected sheet inside it. This time, Sheet2 is password protected worksheet.
Step 2: If you try to write or modify something in this protected worksheet, you will get the following warning message –
Hence, we have to unprotect this sheet to make it editable.
Step 3: On the Excel ribbon, navigate to the Review tab.
Step 4: You will see Unprotect Sheet option inside the Protect group that was earlier Protect Sheet. Click on this option.
Step 5: A popup will open asking for the password to unprotect the sheet. Enter the password that was used while protecting the sheet and click OK.
Step 6: The current sheet will be unprotected. Now, you can perform edit, delete, enter, and modify data on this worksheet.
Method 3: Unprotect the password-protected sheet without password
Sometimes, the user forgets after protecting a sheet using password. He has no idea about the password. A protected sheet is uneditable. So, the user cannot modify its data without unprotected it. There is no way to recover the password using forget password. Excel offers no way like this. In that scenario, what to do.
Instead of the forget password method, Excel offers other ways to unprotect the password-protected sheet without a password.
Using VBA code
The algorithm of Excel password protection is based on the simple encryption technique. One can easily crack the password of the password-protected sheet using the VBA code. They just have to run the macro written using VBA code to identify the password of the protected sheet.
One more time we are protecting the Sheet2 (the same worksheet) to learn the unprotect sheet without password using VBA code.
Steps to unprotect sheet using VBA
Following are the steps to unprotect the worksheet without password using VBA code –
Step 1: Open the Excel file and navigate to the password-protected Excel sheet. Here, Sheet2 is a protected worksheet.
Step 2: Go to the Developer tab and click the View Code option that is available under the Control group.
Step 3: A code editor like below will open in Microsoft visual studio. On the left panel of this code editor, right-click on the password-protected worksheet and select Insert > Module.
Step 4: A new module like below will insert.
Step 5: Now, write the following VBA code in that code editor window of the selected worksheet module.
Step 5: After writing the code, run the written code by clicking the Run icon.
The file will be unprotected. These all are the methods that help you unprotect the sheet that is either protected using a password or without a password.
