How to Remove Forgotten Excel 2010 Password

Method 1：Use PassFab Excel 2010 Password Remover

If you lost or forgot your password, you don't have to worry. Use PassFab for Excel, a fast and easy solution to recover lost or forgotten passwords for Microsoft Excel file. It supports for Excel workbook created in MS Excel 97-2019. There are 3 powerful attack types wrapped in PassFab for Excel:

• Dictionary Attack

  Dictionary attack, highly recommended, is fast if used properly. It recovers your password by seeking password from the dictionary.

• Brute Force Attack

  Brute Force Attack mainly integrates the combination of letters and numbers to generate password sequentially. It will take several minutes to several hours or several years depending on the system used and length of password.

• Brute Force with Mask Attack

  Brute Force with Mask Attack is used when you remember some part of your password. For example, if you still remember your password is 4 characters and begins with "z", then you can define the mask as "z???". This will shorten the time taken to crack password.

Detailed Steps

• Open PassFab for Excel.

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• Click "Add" option to import your password-protected Excel document.

  

• After adding your locked file, you can see the general info of the file: Type, Protection, and Password. The next step is to select a password crack type.

  

• Click "Start" to crack password. The recovering time depends on password length, complexity and computer configuration.

  

• Once the password is found, a dialog window appears and displays your password. Thus, you can use the password to unlock your file.

  

Video Guide

Method 2:Use 7-Zip to Get Excel 2010 Password Recovery

If you have forgotten Excel password 2010 and there is one way you could get that password back, here are some steps that could recover Excel file 2010. It's tricky but not difficult just go step by step. You will be needing 7-Zip software for getting through these steps.

• If your files extensions are not enabled, you have to enable them by navigating to Control Panel > Folder option > View and disable "Hide Extensions for known file types".

• Now look for your protected Excel file and change its extension from .xlsx to .zip by renaming the file.

  

• Now open your zip file using 7-zip and navigate to xl > worksheets and extract sheet.XML file(s). These sheets represent your Excel files sheets.

  

• Now open the extracted XML file with notepad or wordpad and find the following tag: "<sheetProtection password=… />".

  

• Now select the whole tag and remove it.

• Now save the XML file and put it back in the same zip folder and replace the old one.

• Close the zip file and change the extension back to .xlsx from .zip.

This method only applies to password protected workbooks. If the file is secured with the "Encrypt with Password" feature, it will not work.

Tip: Use VBA Code to Remove a Password from Excel 2010

VBA code is a way to unprotect Excel worksheet file. It is one of the simple method but it has to be done step by step. But first you have keep in mind following points:

• If Excel file contain 2 or more protected sheets, run this code for each sheet.
• If your Excel document version is later than 2010 then first save the document as Excel 97-2003 workbook (*.xls), run the macro, and then save it back to original version.

• Open your Excel file and press Alt + F11 to open the Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications.

• Now Right click on the workbook name and select Insert > Module.

  

• A dialogue box will appear in the right pane. Copy the following code and paste it.

  Sub PasswordBreaker()
'Breaks worksheet password protection.
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

• Now click on Run button and let the computer do the rest.

  

When the code is cracked, macro will notify. The password will not be the same instead it will be combination of A's and B's. Click OK and the Excel document is unprotected. Then your will know how to solve it when you forgot Excel 2010 password next time.

Summary

Go get all your password protected Excel 2010 documents and start applying one of the procedure mentioned above. For surely you will get access to it. This is helpful because when one has accidently lost the password, he/she can see and work on the data again by using any of the above approaches. Also there are some tools like PassFab for Excel, which can be used to crack or unlock the password of Microsoft Excel for you. They provide many methods to unprotect Excel 2010 workbook without password.

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