Unlock Protected Excel Sheets (No Password Needed!)

About this video

Kevin shows how to remove forgotten password protection from an Excel worksheet and from an entire workbook without knowing the password. He first demonstrates the problem on a cookie order form: Review > Unprotect Sheet and Protect Workbook both demand a password he cannot remember. The workaround exploits that an .xlsx file is a zip archive. In File Explorer (Windows key + E) he makes a safety copy of the file, turns on file name extensions via View > Show, renames the copy from .xlsx to .zip with F2, and opens it. For sheet protection he navigates to xl > worksheets, copies sheet1.xml to the desktop, opens it in Notepad, uses Ctrl+F to find the ‘sheet protection’ tag, and deletes the whole tag from opening to closing angle bracket — noting you should copy and save the tag first if you want to re-add the same password later. For workbook protection he repeats the process on xl/workbook.xml, searching for and deleting the ‘workbook protection’ tag. He drags each edited XML file back into the zip to replace the original, renames the file back to .xlsx, and opens it to verify he can type in the sheet and add a new sheet, and can set fresh passwords from the Review tab if wanted.

Key takeaways

• Make a safety copy of the Excel file before editing it, in case anything goes wrong.
• Rename the .xlsx file to .zip (after enabling file name extensions) to open its internal contents.
• Delete the ‘sheet protection’ tag in xl/worksheets/sheet1.xml in Notepad to unprotect that worksheet.
• Delete the ‘workbook protection’ tag in xl/workbook.xml the same way to unprotect the whole workbook.
• Save the protection tag before deleting it if you want to reinsert the exact same password later, then drag the edited XML back in and rename the file back to .xlsx.

Episode details: published March 28, 2025 · 6:51 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Kevin Stratvert’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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