How To Unprotect Excel Sheet

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Have you ever encountered a protected Excel sheet that restricted you from editing, viewing, or tweaking the contents? This can be a hurdle, especially when you need to edit the data. Fortunately, Excel provides a simple way to unprotect these sheets, and this tutorial will walk you through the easy steps.

Method 1: When You Know the Password

If you already know the password for the protected sheet, unprotecting it is a simple task. Follow the steps below:

  1. Open the protected Excel file.
  2. Click on the ‘Review’ tab from the toolbar.
  3. Click on the ‘Unprotect Sheet’ option.
  4. You will be prompted to enter the password. Type in the password and hit enter.

With these steps, your Excel sheet is now unprotected and you can edit, view or tweak the content freely.

Method 2: When You Do Not Know the Password

Things can get a bit tricky when you’re dealing with a protected Excel sheet and you don’t know the password. However, don’t worry because we’ve still got you covered.

One common method is to use a simple VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) script to unlock the sheet. Here’s how:

Sub UnprotectExcelSheet()
Dim password As String
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
password = Chr(i) & Chr(j) & Chr(k) & Chr(l) & Chr(m) & Chr(i1) & Chr(i2) & Chr(i3) & Chr(i4) & Chr(i5)
ActiveSheet.Unprotect password
If ActiveSheet.ProtectContents = False Then
MsgBox “Password is ” & password
Exit Sub
End If
Next
Next
Next
Next
Next
Next
Next
Next
Next
Next
End Sub

Once you run this script, it will systematically try different password combinations until the sheet is successfully unprotected. This may take some time depending on the complexity of the password.

To run this script, you need to:

  1. Press ALT + F11 to open the VBA Editor.
  2. Click on Insert > Module to create a new module.
  3. Copy and paste the above script into the module.
  4. Run the script by pressing F5 or clicking Run > Run Sub/UserForm.

After running the script successfully, the Excel sheet will be unprotected and you can edit it freely.

Conclusion

Unprotecting an Excel sheet is a straightforward process, whether you know the password or not. With the methods outlined in this tutorial, you should be able to unprotect any Excel sheet. However, it’s important to ensure that you only unprotect sheets that you have the rights to edit.