For the integrity of the data in an Excel worksheet, we usually set passwords to protect the sheet or workbook from unauthorized changes, such as editing cells, making format changes, adding, deleting, or renaming sheets. If an Excel sheet/workbook is protected, it is therefore read-only, and you have to first remove the protection before you can modify the sheet/workbook. Now the problem is, if you don’t know the password or if you have forgotten it, how can you remove the sheet & workbook protection without the password? Don’t worry. The sheet & workbook protection password can’t be recovered, but they can be easily removed by some special method. Now, this page will show you how to remove sheet & workbook protection in Excel without a password.
How to remove sheet & workbook protection in Excel without password
What you need is the small but powerful Workbook Protection Refixer software. Steps are as follows.
Step 1: Install and run Workbook Protection Refixer on your computer.
Step 2: Make sure the target Excel worksheet is closed and make sure it is an Excel 2007-2016 (.xlsx) file. If it is an Excel 97-2003 (.xls) file, open it and then save it as a .xlsx file.
Step 3: Click the Open button. After the Open dialog opens, navigate to the target Excel worksheet, select it, and click Open, so that the Excel worksheet is added to the Workbook Protection Refixer. You can view the added Excel file path in the field under File Name.
Step 4: Click the Remove Password button, then all passwords that protect the sheet & workbook from changes are removed at once, including the sheet protection password, workbook protection password, and read-only password.
Step 5: Your original, protected Excel worksheet is saved as an unprotected worksheet in the same location. Open the unprotected worksheet and you can make changes to the sheet & workbook without any restrictions. You can delete the original, protected Excel worksheet if you want to. If the original, protected worksheet is deleted, the unprotected worksheet still can work fine.
Conclusion: As you can see, you can easily and instantly remove sheet & workbook protection in Excel with just one click of the Remove Password button on the Workbook Protection Refixer software. If you just wonder how to remove protection from an Excel sheet instead of workbook after the password is forgotten, you have another two methods, which were introduced in my previous post: free ways to unprotect Excel sheet without a password.