Excel: Forgot the password of the sheet protection - this helps

With Excel you create programmable tables that you can use to calculate taxes, household expenses or other items. Once you have created a table, you can protect it with a password so that it cannot be changed. If you have forgotten the password, you can easily override the protection.

How to undo the password sheet protection in Excel?

If you want to remove the sheet protection, just use 7-Zip.

1. Download 7-Zip and install the file unpacker.
2. Use 7-Zip to open the .xlxs file. Then navigate to the "worksheets" folder.
3. Copy the sheet1.xml and paste it back to your desktop.
4. Open sheet1.xml on your desktop using any text editor. "WordPad" is best.
5. Search for the word "password" with the key combination "Ctrl+F" and delete the content between the two quotes behind it. Now there should be <password=""> without <>.
6. Save the sheet.xml and drag it back into 7-Zip so that the other file is replaced by the new one. Close 7-Zip afterwards.
7. Now you can open the file with Excel and remove the sheet protection in the "Review" tab. Since no password is set anymore, none will be requested.

Now you can use Excel again as usual and insert macros into the file, for example.

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