Learning with Leila is fun. Seriously, I told my employer that l am expert in all MS suite. Well l am not, this is where I come to learn. You have been a life saver for me. Thanks again sweet lady.
I can’t begin to tell you how many hours you have saved me. I asked the coworker for an unprotected workbook of his so that I can begin making updates for Fiscal Year 2023. His response was “not my sheet, don’t have a blank unprotected one, sorry”. I knew that I could do this but I couldn’t remember what to do after the zip portion. I am subscribing to your channel in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Thank you so much. 😁
Holy COW!!! I've had a locked spreadsheet that I've used for EIGHT YEARS!!! The person who created it disappeared and NO ONE in my organization knows the password. BUT I JUST UNLOCKED IT WITH YOUR VIDEO LEILA!!!! Omg everyone is going to be blown away that I figured this out and all i did was follow these steps. Not hard at all.
I had made a excel sheet about a year and half ago. and of course I had forgotten the protection password. I had to make some minor changes to the sheet as per my colleague request, and I was not able to do it. I googled it and your video was on TOP. and after getting the job done in 3-4 minutes , I know now why your spot was on the top :) 😊. Great work Leila, Thanx
Damn, from an Excel point of view, this "Sheet protection" concept seems to be useless for proper security, unless we just want it to restrict and guide the user in general! Amazing video!
Oh my goodness... this video was a total life saver... I had a document used for our companies scheduling system for over 800 employees... I needed to make a change to the formula sheet and couldn't remember the password as the document was a couple years old... Crazy grateful!!!
11.19 PM, after spending about 20 min trying to follow a guide that suggested this method (didn't work). I watch your video, instant success. Thank you thank you, Leila!
I found this exact method a few years back on UA-cam when I forgot the password of one of my own sheets, but this video explained it much better and always great to have a reminder! :)
An absolute lifesaver. Inherited a password protected file from a coworker who retired w/o leaving their notes and this saved me from having to remake the whole workbook from scratch!
Many thanks for this step by step guide Leila. I locked a workbook at work to stop someone changing and some weeks later, forgot that I had done this. I was unable to add extra sheets, this video guide has just saved me so much time and effort. PS, I have enjoyed and learnt a lot from many of your other videos
Excellent work Leila! A quick note to say that you have to follow the steps EXACTLY as Leila mentions otherwise your file will get corrupted. If your file is on a Sharepoint site you will need to download it to your computer first, make a copy, rename it and when the task is complete you can upload it back to Sharepoint and it will not conflict with the previous file.
Leila, Fantastic presentation! Short and sweet! Been watching a number of your videos - thought I knew a lot about Excel - finding out there is SO MUCH more to learn! Curious how you became so knowledgeable about Excel.
I was 100% freaking out over having to possibly retype my whole Excel when I couldn't get into it after it was saved with an incorrect password. I watched this and thought I'll never be able to do it. Going step by step I followed along exactly as you said and it WORKED!! Thanks so much!
This video is absolutely wonderful. I had a file created by a recently retired colleague who could not remember the password they used. This tip saved me HOURS of work having to recreate a multi-tab workbook. Thank you so much for making and sharing.
you have exposed a secret Microsoft has hidden for a long time. the xlsx file is just a renamed zip file. nicely done. there is actually more that can be done while till in xlm format.
I found out about this a few weeks ago as there was a link to another Excel file I couldn't remove and I couldn't find where it was. Turns out a range I copied over had a defined name and it linked the defined name to the original Excel file. The original file name in the formula for the defined name doesn't get removed it you try to break link or set the current Excel file as the target. One of the xml files showed all the links and I figured it out from that. It's kind of funny thinking it's a .zip
i received an excel workbook that was beautifully designed and way above my abilities. i wanted to see the formulas and how the creator made it work but it was locked up tight. thanks to your video, i was able to unlock it and admire the handiwork. i am definitely adding some of these formulas to my toolbox!
Greetings from Indonesia, Sister. This video was made two years ago, but keeps on giving. You saved me a lot of time today. Thank you. Peace be with you, Sis. Now and always.
This is great, I have done that some time ago, it worked perfectly. One suggestion for Notepad (when you found and deleted the protection): it could be useful to use Format menu, then Word Wrap, text will be re-arranged within the page width, it could be easier to see. To be honest, the way you presented it is better, because that protection start tag, and end tag are on the same line (word wrapping might move end tag to another line). One more thing: it would be useful to create another video with removing the protection for the workbook (structure). Do you agree ? Thank you.
Thank you Leila for this great channel. Compared to similar YT channel, you have a great sense of organization, you pay attention to the smallest details, and the way you present the toughest subject makes it easy to everyone to understand regardless of his/her level of mastery, and this is what I like about the channel. All the best.
Leila Gharani I love you! This is the third time I have forgotten the password for a worksheet--and the other times were long enough ago that I had forgotten what to do. But this time I knew right where to go--your UA-cam video! Very quickly, I'm back in business. Thank you ever so much!!!!!
Leila you are the best!!! I was just handed a ton of work to repair in an XL spread sheet and the sheet with all the work was password protected. Just came to your UA-cam page and found this clip. You continually save the day!!
Do you actually think there are hackers out there wanting to change values in your excel sheets or something? Like, who are the bad guys she could work for in this scenario?
Thank you Leila! Great step-by-step walkthrough. Fortunately, Windows 10 now handles zip natively, so I was able to edit without an extra utility. Also, a warning to those with multi-tab workbooks: You have to search every "zipped" XL file. I found some that had "protect" and some that didn't. To unlock the workbook, I had to search them all and edited about half before I could access all cells.
Wow thank you! I cant believe this actually works. I remember ages ago googling for ages to try and unlock a file but could only find apps to try and brute force the password. This solution is great!
Great job of explaining! I was frustrated by receiving a necessary file at a large corporation that had been locked and no one seemed to know how to unlock it. I spent days going round and round looking for the password to no avail. Your fix had me up and working within the hour (there were a lot of sheets in my file). Great job!
I mainly use sheet protection to prevent somebody to break formulas so it's far from a bad thing to be able to remove sheet protection if we end up forgetting the password. Sometimes I protect the sheet without keying a password. The cells that I want to protect from being erased are still protected but you don't need password that you will probably forget in the future :) The main goal of protecting a sheet (or specific cells in a sheet) is mainly usefull to prevent some random co-worker to break things by clicking everywhere :)
Beautiful, I had been struggling to unlock one of my worksheet for last 4 months and was hesitant to pay money to random sites for it.. this video was a game changer..
I learned some things here, thanks! It looks like the sheet file sizes are also displayed when opening the file as a zip file - I might try that to troubleshoot huge excel files to see which sheets could use some cleaning
I have used this video often. Thank you sooo much for this. I don't need to "unprotect" my excel sheets often but when I do and I don't remember my password, this is definitely my go too.
Leila, you are a lifesaver! I have now forgotten my password twice, but the second time I remembered that you had helped me out of a jam the first time. Much less panic and remorse. Thank you ever so much!!!!
J’adore !!! Fin des prises de tête parce que le lot de passe est oublié ou mal orthographié !!! Pleins de grands mercis. J’ai déjà plusieurs cas sur lesquels je vais pouvoir me faire la main !!! Toujours aussi efficace. Bravo.
SHOUT OUT to Leila G! This works. FYI: I used 7-zip, had to right click and use "edit" or "F4" key. When I did that it automatically dump into notepad - so word to the wise: depending on which zip you use, it will have its own "way" of doing things. Another thing is, can be time consuming; I had 20 protected sheets. Was trying to do this while eating dinner and CORRUPTED the file 2x. 3rd's a charm, took an hour but I'd give an hour ANY day rather than recreating the doc....THANK YOU, LEILA!!!!
You saved me more time and frustration than I can even begin to describe. Ha! Thank you so much. I didn't forget the password, I had either had my fingers on the wrong keys or had a major mental breakdown last time I unlocked and relocked the sheet. I have no idea, but I'm happy to be able to use the sheet again. I cannot thank you enough!
Something that may help is using an editor that handles XML files instead of notepad or other plain text editor. It will present the file formatted nicely with line breaks and indentations and it will be easier to select just what you want to delete.
Great work Leila ❤️... I think excel protect function is made primarily to ensure unintentional editing of data. So no harm in showing way to unprotect your excel file if you have forgot your password. For security purpose, you have laptop/ pc login password.
Super! really wonderful trick. i just got mad by losing a password for a sheet. tried so many methods but failed. your trick is simple and wonderful. thank you
My memory always causes me more work than it should!! password protect to stop colleagues changing then forget password haha, Leila to the rescue, thank you for the video.
Note that you may have to save the original spreadsheet in "xlsx" format first. I had an old spreadsheet in "xls" format that would not open when changed to "zip". Doing a "Save As..." to .xlsx worked. Thanks for a great tip, Leila!
OMG, thank you so much. I had this same situation where forgot my password and had to recreate a complex spreadsheet from scratch as I couldn't find any solution even on Microsoft site. This would have saved me hours and a lot of tears along the way. Thank you
if you used the file protection within Excel FILE>INFO>PROTECT WORKBOOK>ENCRYPT WITH PASSWORD then there is no way to bypass that since it is 256bit encryption. (well, you might break it with a ton of supercomputers and a few years of brute-forcing it!)
You can enter the Visual Basic Editor and protect the entire workbook. There is a menu with proprieties and has the Password field where you can add a password. After you save the VBA and the Excel file when it's opened again, nothing works in Excel and is all blue and it will prompt you the enter the password. After that all is activated.
Hello, please help. When i double clicked the zipped file, it says "The Archive Is Either In Unknown Format or Damaged Error" :( however the original file is not corrupted. I can't proceed from there. Please help.
Lol I tried with many other videos out there but this was the only one that was smart enough to know how dumb I am so she mentions turning on the “show extension” 😂. This is the step I was missing for days trying to unlock my sheet. Thank you so much
WHAT AN EASY AND VERY SIMPLE SOLUTION TO A VERY HARD PROBLEM. I FOUND IT EASIER USING AN HTML EDITOR WHEN IT WAS TIME TO OPEN THE SHEETAND MAKE AND SAVE CHANGES.BUT IN ALL MANY THANKS FOR A GREAT SOLUTION
Absolutely brilliant Leila - thank you. I had my passwords but Excel wasn't recognising any of them. This was my last chance and worked really well. Thank you.
Leila, now that you have shown a core vulnerability in excel. You should make a follow up video, the correct way/tools too use in order to protect excel so peoole cant just view the xml and get your data!
the most secure way to protect your Excel-file ist to protect it with the password to open it. simply save as... your file with the extended option with password. and use a save password with uppercase/lowercase, special characters and numbers.
Thanks!!!! For Excel LTSC 2021 is a little different from your version, but the principle is the same, delete the Proctect line and Bum! No more protected Sheet! Save my day, thanks a lot!
Oh!! Leila this video is self explanatory thanks for saving me a lot to redo a work that would have cost another another 5hours to redo everything but in less than 15minutes I was able recover all I needed. Bravo!!!
can you please explain Tips, if we have forgot the password for the workbook instead of sheets? I am not able to open the excel file itself :-( Thanks in advance
THANK YOU!!! I have been trying VBA and was about to look for third party software. Nope just need to watch Leila's tutorial. Should have started here. Would have saved me hours!
if you used the file protection within Excel FILE>INFO>PROTECT WORKBOOK>ENCRYPT WITH PASSWORD then there is no way to bypass that since it is 256bit encryption. (well, you might break it with a ton of supercomputers and a few years of brute-forcing it!)
@@kiranvootori8101 It's the workbook.xml file. Do the exact same thing as Leila said, go to "xl" folder and you will find the file. You do the search for "protect" and delete what you need.
@@welm98 if the spreadsheet is protected against changes it seems practical. Not such for open privileges. I like the method shown here. Quicker than throwing the formulas into a VB array.
This worked for me really well, on a complex workbook with 20 plus worksheets, all of them protected, after the 3rd sheet I memorized all the steps on a keyboard. It saved me many many hours of work. Thank you very much. Liked and Suscribed
The comments on here sound like people had a lot more faith in Excel's security than they ever should have had. Excel has always been vulnerable to hacking, guys. If someone really wants to get in to your file, I promise you they will.
@@user-mma173 If you want to encrypt the data then use a real encryption program such as pgp or better yet the free gnupg (gpg). Set the encryption to 4096. Otherwise you're just fooling yourself. Gpg will integrate right into outlook. It's awesome!
This was greatly appreciated. Had to redo an entire worksheet as the password was somehow different, possibly by an additional keystroke. Now a I know how to rectify for future. There are more complex ones that would take forever to fix if password was forgotten..
That was ridiculously helpfull. When that happens it's a real pain because we all usually use that for finished tables that will be in use for a while without editing. So when the problem pops up it is quite likely the creator of the table has long since forgotten the protection password. Being able to avoid using hacking tools is a major relief. I do hope Microsoft will never take this possibility away from "practionners" like me. Thank you so much for sharing!
My spreadsheet was an .xls and this didn't work at first but I saved it as an .xlsx and it worked perfectly! Thank you so much. You gained a subscriber today 🙂
Outstanding! I don't know what else to say!! Solved my problem and saved my butt!!! (I need to color one summary cell based on whether ANY of several other cells are red - got any videos for that? In other words if ANY one of a group of cells exceeds their set limit then THE SUMMARY column turns red, so then the summary cell should then turn red even if only it's one cell in the group that went over. I'm summarizing many columns of wattage utilization, and this way you wouldn't have to scroll all the way over to see if just one went over - even though total watts available are still ok for the datacenter as a whole. Thanks either way! )
After doing this process in 7zip and closing 7zip and renaming the .zip back to .xlsx, and then trying to open it in Excel, Excel would not open the file and had an error. I then renamed the file from .xlsx to .xls and went to Excel File > Open > the .xls file, and Excel asked are you sure, and I said yes, and it opened the file just fine. Then I used File > Save As to save it as a modern .xlsx workbook. Hope that helps someone out. Thanks for posting this video.
Download the Cheat Sheet with step-by-step instructions to remove password protection 👉 pages.xelplus.com/unlock-excel-file
Is this method applicable to unlocking the VBA password?
Hey Leila. How to open an Excel Sheet which is password protected and you don't know the password?
Will this work on a XLSM file?
@@pierrepl1272 XLSM works too but I must do that for all sheets, not only one.
Thank you soo much.. this was so helpful
Learning with Leila is fun. Seriously, I told my employer that l am expert in all MS suite. Well l am not, this is where I come to learn. You have been a life saver for me. Thanks again sweet lady.
I can’t begin to tell you how many hours you have saved me. I asked the coworker for an unprotected workbook of his so that I can begin making updates for Fiscal Year 2023. His response was “not my sheet, don’t have a blank unprotected one, sorry”. I knew that I could do this but I couldn’t remember what to do after the zip portion. I am subscribing to your channel in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Thank you so much. 😁
Holy COW!!! I've had a locked spreadsheet that I've used for EIGHT YEARS!!! The person who created it disappeared and NO ONE in my organization knows the password. BUT I JUST UNLOCKED IT WITH YOUR VIDEO LEILA!!!! Omg everyone is going to be blown away that I figured this out and all i did was follow these steps. Not hard at all.
Good job, Mark! Glad the video was helpful.
I had made a excel sheet about a year and half ago. and of course I had forgotten the protection password. I had to make some minor changes to the sheet as per my colleague request, and I was not able to do it. I googled it and your video was on TOP. and after getting the job done in 3-4 minutes , I know now why your spot was on the top :) 😊.
Great work Leila, Thanx
Damn, from an Excel point of view, this "Sheet protection" concept seems to be useless for proper security, unless we just want it to restrict and guide the user in general!
Amazing video!
I forget my coworkers passwords all the time. Thanks!
I lolled. 👍
😂
😊😊😊
Hahaha!
I literally cried laughing! Good one!
Oh my goodness... this video was a total life saver... I had a document used for our companies scheduling system for over 800 employees... I needed to make a change to the formula sheet and couldn't remember the password as the document was a couple years old... Crazy grateful!!!
Super happy to hear that!
11.19 PM, after spending about 20 min trying to follow a guide that suggested this method (didn't work). I watch your video, instant success. Thank you thank you, Leila!
Glad it helped.
Hi Leila, this was SUPER !! We had a team member who left and refused to give us the worksheet password....this method worked amazingly well.....
Nope. Not gonna do it.... still not going to give you the password.
Anoop, send him a copy of the unprotected file. 😆
@@rlalthantluanga or a copy with a different password 😂😂
I found this exact method a few years back on UA-cam when I forgot the password of one of my own sheets, but this video explained it much better and always great to have a reminder! :)
An absolute lifesaver. Inherited a password protected file from a coworker who retired w/o leaving their notes and this saved me from having to remake the whole workbook from scratch!
Many thanks for this step by step guide Leila. I locked a workbook at work to stop someone changing and some weeks later, forgot that I had done this. I was unable to add extra sheets, this video guide has just saved me so much time and effort. PS, I have enjoyed and learnt a lot from many of your other videos
Excellent work Leila! A quick note to say that you have to follow the steps EXACTLY as Leila mentions otherwise your file will get corrupted. If your file is on a Sharepoint site you will need to download it to your computer first, make a copy, rename it and when the task is complete you can upload it back to Sharepoint and it will not conflict with the previous file.
Leila, Fantastic presentation! Short and sweet! Been watching a number of your videos - thought I knew a lot about Excel - finding out there is SO MUCH more to learn! Curious how you became so knowledgeable about Excel.
I was 100% freaking out over having to possibly retype my whole Excel when I couldn't get into it after it was saved with an incorrect password. I watched this and thought I'll never be able to do it. Going step by step I followed along exactly as you said and it WORKED!! Thanks so much!
YAY!!!! That's great!
This video is absolutely wonderful. I had a file created by a recently retired colleague who could not remember the password they used. This tip saved me HOURS of work having to recreate a multi-tab workbook. Thank you so much for making and sharing.
You always stand out from other Excel experts and Trainers! Amazingly inspiring video!
you have exposed a secret Microsoft has hidden for a long time. the xlsx file is just a renamed zip file. nicely done. there is actually more that can be done while till in xlm format.
I found out about this a few weeks ago as there was a link to another Excel file I couldn't remove and I couldn't find where it was. Turns out a range I copied over had a defined name and it linked the defined name to the original Excel file. The original file name in the formula for the defined name doesn't get removed it you try to break link or set the current Excel file as the target. One of the xml files showed all the links and I figured it out from that. It's kind of funny thinking it's a .zip
i received an excel workbook that was beautifully designed and way above my abilities. i wanted to see the formulas and how the creator made it work but it was locked up tight. thanks to your video, i was able to unlock it and admire the handiwork. i am definitely adding some of these formulas to my toolbox!
Greetings from Indonesia, Sister. This video was made two years ago, but keeps on giving. You saved me a lot of time today. Thank you. Peace be with you, Sis. Now and always.
This is great, I have done that some time ago, it worked perfectly. One suggestion for Notepad (when you found and deleted the protection): it could be useful to use Format menu, then Word Wrap, text will be re-arranged within the page width, it could be easier to see. To be honest, the way you presented it is better, because that protection start tag, and end tag are on the same line (word wrapping might move end tag to another line). One more thing: it would be useful to create another video with removing the protection for the workbook (structure). Do you agree ? Thank you.
Thank you Leila for this great channel. Compared to similar YT channel, you have a great sense of organization, you pay attention to the smallest details, and the way you present the toughest subject makes it easy to everyone to understand regardless of his/her level of mastery, and this is what I like about the channel. All the best.
Leila Gharani I love you! This is the third time I have forgotten the password for a worksheet--and the other times were long enough ago that I had forgotten what to do. But this time I knew right where to go--your UA-cam video! Very quickly, I'm back in business. Thank you ever so much!!!!!
Leila you are the best!!! I was just handed a ton of work to repair in an XL spread sheet and the sheet with all the work was password protected. Just came to your UA-cam page and found this clip. You continually save the day!!
I hope you are working for the "good guys" because that was powerful.
Only for the good guys 😊
Lolz! True
Do you actually think there are hackers out there wanting to change values in your excel sheets or something? Like, who are the bad guys she could work for in this scenario?
She only works for me lol
That was too easy
Thank you Leila! Great step-by-step walkthrough. Fortunately, Windows 10 now handles zip natively, so I was able to edit without an extra utility. Also, a warning to those with multi-tab workbooks: You have to search every "zipped" XL file. I found some that had "protect" and some that didn't. To unlock the workbook, I had to search them all and edited about half before I could access all cells.
Wow thank you! I cant believe this actually works. I remember ages ago googling for ages to try and unlock a file but could only find apps to try and brute force the password. This solution is great!
Great job of explaining! I was frustrated by receiving a necessary file at a large corporation that had been locked and no one seemed to know how to unlock it. I spent days going round and round looking for the password to no avail. Your fix had me up and working within the hour (there were a lot of sheets in my file). Great job!
I mainly use sheet protection to prevent somebody to break formulas so it's far from a bad thing to be able to remove sheet protection if we end up forgetting the password. Sometimes I protect the sheet without keying a password. The cells that I want to protect from being erased are still protected but you don't need password that you will probably forget in the future :) The main goal of protecting a sheet (or specific cells in a sheet) is mainly usefull to prevent some random co-worker to break things by clicking everywhere :)
Brilliant - just helped me solve a problem with a client's spreadsheet
I was able to unlock my worksheets locked with forgotten passwords using your clear instructions. Many thanks
Beautiful, I had been struggling to unlock one of my worksheet for last 4 months and was hesitant to pay money to random sites for it.. this video was a game changer..
I learned some things here, thanks! It looks like the sheet file sizes are also displayed when opening the file as a zip file - I might try that to troubleshoot huge excel files to see which sheets could use some cleaning
Wow, I didn't know how easy it was to override the protection set at Workbook and Worksheet levels... Thank you for the video!
overriding console apps is quite easy as they have a single password thread
I have used this video often. Thank you sooo much for this. I don't need to "unprotect" my excel sheets often but when I do and I don't remember my password, this is definitely my go too.
Glad it was helpful!
Leila, you are a lifesaver! I have now forgotten my password twice, but the second time I remembered that you had helped me out of a jam the first time. Much less panic and remorse. Thank you ever so much!!!!
You are so welcome, Carolyn!
Leila@@LeilaGharani
J’adore !!! Fin des prises de tête parce que le lot de passe est oublié ou mal orthographié !!! Pleins de grands mercis. J’ai déjà plusieurs cas sur lesquels je vais pouvoir me faire la main !!! Toujours aussi efficace. Bravo.
You're amazing. I've been needing this for weeks and you just solved it in a couple of minutes. Thank you so much. Keep it up with the great content.
Google?
SHOUT OUT to Leila G! This works. FYI: I used 7-zip, had to right click and use "edit" or "F4" key. When I did that it automatically dump into notepad - so word to the wise: depending on which zip you use, it will have its own "way" of doing things. Another thing is, can be time consuming; I had 20 protected sheets. Was trying to do this while eating dinner and CORRUPTED the file 2x. 3rd's a charm, took an hour but I'd give an hour ANY day rather than recreating the doc....THANK YOU, LEILA!!!!
Glad it helped, Jackie!
My colleague quit and didn't tell anyone the password. Thanks a ton!
Subscribed
I forgot all the time. Thanks for this helpful tutorial :)
This was so helpful and easy to follow! Straight to the point and worked! Very well done. Thank you so much!!!
You saved me more time and frustration than I can even begin to describe. Ha! Thank you so much. I didn't forget the password, I had either had my fingers on the wrong keys or had a major mental breakdown last time I unlocked and relocked the sheet. I have no idea, but I'm happy to be able to use the sheet again. I cannot thank you enough!
Happy to help, Clint!
Amazing!! It really worked. I was trying to recover my password for few hours but nothing worked except this. Thanks a lot! YOu are such a huge help!
Happy to help ☺️
Something that may help is using an editor that handles XML files instead of notepad or other plain text editor. It will present the file formatted nicely with line breaks and indentations and it will be easier to select just what you want to delete.
Great work Leila ❤️... I think excel protect function is made primarily to ensure unintentional editing of data. So no harm in showing way to unprotect your excel file if you have forgot your password. For security purpose, you have laptop/ pc login password.
Super! really wonderful trick. i just got mad by losing a password for a sheet. tried so many methods but failed. your trick is simple and wonderful. thank you
My memory always causes me more work than it should!! password protect to stop colleagues changing then forget password haha, Leila to the rescue, thank you for the video.
It gives me error that windows can't open the file...it is invalid. What should I do now?
Same invalid comes in windows 11
Note that you may have to save the original spreadsheet in "xlsx" format first. I had an old spreadsheet in "xls" format that would not open when changed to "zip".
Doing a "Save As..." to .xlsx worked.
Thanks for a great tip, Leila!
👍
Does it works for xlsb as well? I'm afraid a file can lose some functionalities while converting from xlsb to xlsx but I may be wrong.
Thank you
Same problem with me. Mine xls file but how to save as file in xlsx without file opening as it is password protected and not opening
Wow love this. As a project manager I use excel all the time, I don’t lock them but now I know how to unlock if I need to.
OMG, thank you so much. I had this same situation where forgot my password and had to recreate a complex spreadsheet from scratch as I couldn't find any solution even on Microsoft site. This would have saved me hours and a lot of tears along the way. Thank you
Hi Leila, anything for protected workbooks?
if you used the file protection within Excel FILE>INFO>PROTECT WORKBOOK>ENCRYPT WITH PASSWORD then there is no way to bypass that since it is 256bit encryption. (well, you might break it with a ton of supercomputers and a few years of brute-forcing it!)
Do the same with the workbook.xml in the xl folder
@@byronstutorialspage2134 There are 3rd party tools that are pretty decent at hacking your way back in. They use lists of common passwords.
You can enter the Visual Basic Editor and protect the entire workbook. There is a menu with proprieties and has the Password field where you can add a password. After you save the VBA and the Excel file when it's opened again, nothing works in Excel and is all blue and it will prompt you the enter the password. After that all is activated.
Hello, please help. When i double clicked the zipped file, it says "The Archive Is Either In Unknown Format or Damaged Error" :( however the original file is not corrupted. I can't proceed from there. Please help.
I had the same issue. Another comment said to change it from .xls to .xlsx. I had to use .xlsm since mine had macros, but this worked for me.
Lol I tried with many other videos out there but this was the only one that was smart enough to know how dumb I am so she mentions turning on the “show extension” 😂. This is the step I was missing for days trying to unlock my sheet. Thank you so much
👍
Excellent tip for many who forget password for protected sheets! Kudos!
This is next level tutorials! But tbh, I don't feel like my protected files are safe anymore
Hahahah, this is such a good tutorial.. Nothing is safe anymore..
They never were…
They were never safe. Excel's security is not military standard.
This doesnt work for password protected FILES, only password protected SHEETS. File are still safe, they cannot be cracked easily.
@@Tom_baz if that's true, it's relieving indeed. Even though deep down, now I am sure Leila knows a work around for that as well 😂
This is fantastic. Thank you for sharing
WHAT AN EASY AND VERY SIMPLE SOLUTION TO A VERY HARD PROBLEM. I FOUND IT EASIER USING AN HTML EDITOR WHEN IT WAS TIME TO OPEN THE SHEETAND MAKE AND SAVE CHANGES.BUT IN ALL MANY THANKS FOR A GREAT SOLUTION
Absolutely brilliant Leila - thank you. I had my passwords but Excel wasn't recognising any of them. This was my last chance and worked really well. Thank you.
Glad it helped!
Leila, now that you have shown a core vulnerability in excel. You should make a follow up video, the correct way/tools too use in order to protect excel so peoole cant just view the xml and get your data!
the most secure way to protect your Excel-file ist to protect it with the password to open it. simply save as... your file with the extended option with password. and use a save password with uppercase/lowercase, special characters and numbers.
Hi Leila why is that in my part it doesn't work. after i turn it to zip file and double click it it says corrupted file ot not a valid zip file.
same here
Thanks!!!! For Excel LTSC 2021 is a little different from your version, but the principle is the same, delete the Proctect line and Bum! No more protected Sheet! Save my day, thanks a lot!
Oh!! Leila this video is self explanatory thanks for saving me a lot to redo a work that would have cost another another 5hours to redo everything but in less than 15minutes I was able recover all I needed. Bravo!!!
can you please explain Tips, if we have forgot the password for the workbook instead of sheets?
I am not able to open the excel file itself :-(
Thanks in advance
Read the top, pinned comment.
Another amazing content 🔥
THANK YOU!!! I have been trying VBA and was about to look for third party software. Nope just need to watch Leila's tutorial. Should have started here. Would have saved me hours!
You're very welcome!
Your instructions was easy to follow. You do a great job at teaching others how to use excel beyond the basics.
it's amazing. Thanks Leila. what about the workbook?
use google and you'll find plenty of examples for workbook
How about if whole file/workbook is protected?
Idk. But you can extract files from the zip file and search for 'protect' in all the files. I am almost sure, you will find it somewhere.
if you used the file protection within Excel FILE>INFO>PROTECT WORKBOOK>ENCRYPT WITH PASSWORD then there is no way to bypass that since it is 256bit encryption. (well, you might break it with a ton of supercomputers and a few years of brute-forcing it!)
@@byronstutorialspage2134 This video is not about decryption. Just bypassing it.
@@kiranvootori8101 It's the workbook.xml file. Do the exact same thing as Leila said, go to "xl" folder and you will find the file. You do the search for "protect" and delete what you need.
I followed this video and my sheet was successfully unprotected. Thanks madam
👍
Don't ever remove this video! I am going to save this for when that inevitable moment when this will happen to me!
thanks for sharing 🤘
I knew that Excel-protection was not that hard to get around. But I didn't expect it to be that easy. Ouch.
Microsoft security at its zenith.
Sigh.
Wait till you find out how to disable Windows login passwords. It's not as easy as it used to be, mainly due to boot changes, but still.
@@Raison_d-etre I have such a boot CD lol
Great talk through once again Leila - tried to follow this through on a webpage but failed, nailed it first time following this through!
Leila! My god. This has happened to me times without number. This video was a lifesaver. Thanks so much.
Glad it helped!
Nothing better than a gorgeous woman, who is also very intelligent
This will come in handy when employees leave bricked worksheets after they move on.
I do not believe you can unprotect a file you did not create, unless you have overall admin rights to that employee's computer.
@@welm98 if the spreadsheet is protected against changes it seems practical. Not such for open privileges. I like the method shown here. Quicker than throwing the formulas into a VB array.
This worked for me really well, on a complex workbook with 20 plus worksheets, all of them protected, after the 3rd sheet I memorized all the steps on a keyboard. It saved me many many hours of work. Thank you very much. Liked and Suscribed
Thank you Mam, I'm a teacher from the Philippines, and it helped a lot. God bless you.
You actually found a bug in security.
That is what I was thinking
She didn't find it, this has been known since the start of the xlsx use back in 2007
Microsoft "security" has been a joke since 1990.
exactly and now I fell that my files are not protected anymore. Still it was a good video.
Start using libreoffice suite for more security
Does this work on a protected workbook or excel file?
OMG, I love this. Now I'm gonna find out all the excel analysis my coworkers been protecting from me 😂
Thank you so much, finally got rid of that protected sheet. I must have typed the password wrong. Love your videos
So basically a protected excel sheet doesn’t exist 😂
The same with protected MACRO (can be the next video). Excel is not safe and it should be known...
@@songokussj4cz Not just excel. Most software out there can be hacked. You just need to know how.
xlsb
There is is no such thing as 100% security and MS word is similar
@@johnlangford7032 read my commemt.
The comments on here sound like people had a lot more faith in Excel's security than they ever should have had. Excel has always been vulnerable to hacking, guys. If someone really wants to get in to your file, I promise you they will.
Very true, Paloma!
Yup in fact thats why most companies have the macro function disabled by default because it was used as a hacking vulnerability
@@LeilaGharani do u know any good folder lock?Tq
THANK YOU!!!!!! MY BRAIN CELLS ARE CRYING IN GRATITUDE
YES!!! Looking for a formula we stopped using years ago and forgot the password for that sheet. THANKS!
So basically, Excel sheets are protected by a method known as security by obscurity. It’s not true encryption.
It didn't say it was encrypted. It said it was protected. For most people that's good enough.
There is a way to encrypt the workbooks and it is very difficult to break.
@@user-mma173 If you want to encrypt the data then use a real encryption program such as pgp or better yet the free gnupg (gpg). Set the encryption to 4096. Otherwise you're just fooling yourself. Gpg will integrate right into outlook. It's awesome!
Excel FILE>INFO>PROTECT WORKBOOK>ENCRYPT WITH PASSWORD then there is no way to bypass that since it is 256bit encryption.
@@byronstutorialspage2134 Never say never.
Next: how to force the lock of your own door if you forgot the keys inside...
For that we have the LockPickingLawyer
I'm sure she has a makro for this
Use the brick through window extension.
@@kaljalavaofficial LOL, He's probably already picked it.
clearly you have to unzip your house first. Duh!
This was greatly appreciated. Had to redo an entire worksheet as the password was somehow different, possibly by an additional keystroke. Now a I know how to rectify for future. There are more complex ones that would take forever to fix if password was forgotten..
Thanks this was very helpful. I forgot my password and was going crazy until I found your video and followed your instructions. Big up!
Is not it simple by just opening a protected Excel file in Google Sheets? And voila, the protection is gone!
Much easier
This worked great to remove the password on a legacy workbook. Thanks!
That was ridiculously helpfull. When that happens it's a real pain because we all usually use that for finished tables that will be in use for a while without editing. So when the problem pops up it is quite likely the creator of the table has long since forgotten the protection password. Being able to avoid using hacking tools is a major relief. I do hope Microsoft will never take this possibility away from "practionners" like me.
Thank you so much for sharing!
My spreadsheet was an .xls and this didn't work at first but I saved it as an .xlsx and it worked perfectly! Thank you so much. You gained a subscriber today 🙂
Outstanding! I don't know what else to say!! Solved my problem and saved my butt!!! (I need to color one summary cell based on whether ANY of several other cells are red - got any videos for that? In other words if ANY one of a group of cells exceeds their set limit then THE SUMMARY column turns red, so then the summary cell should then turn red even if only it's one cell in the group that went over. I'm summarizing many columns of wattage utilization, and this way you wouldn't have to scroll all the way over to see if just one went over - even though total watts available are still ok for the datacenter as a whole. Thanks either way! )
After doing this process in 7zip and closing 7zip and renaming the .zip back to .xlsx, and then trying to open it in Excel, Excel would not open the file and had an error. I then renamed the file from .xlsx to .xls and went to Excel File > Open > the .xls file, and Excel asked are you sure, and I said yes, and it opened the file just fine. Then I used File > Save As to save it as a modern .xlsx workbook. Hope that helps someone out. Thanks for posting this video.
Where were you years ago? This is a great tip and you did a wonderful job explaining it!
Glad it was helpful!