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How to protect and unprotect Excel sheet with or

Feb
without password
10 by Svetlana Cheusheva Excel, Excel tips, Excel tutorials 58 Comments
The tutorial shows how to protect Excel sheet with or without passwords. It also explains how to unlock
9 Excel spreadsheet without password if you forgot or misplaced it.
When sharing your worksheets with other people or sending your Excel files outside of your
organization, you may want to prevent other users from changing cells that shouldn't be
changed, and also from moving or deleting important data in your worksheet or workbook.
Luckily, Excel provides a quick and easy way to lock a sheet or password protect an entire
workbook to prevent accidental or deliberate changes in their contents.
Excel worksheet protection - the basics
How to password protect an Excel sheet
How to unlock Excel spreadsheet
open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com
How to unlock Excel sheet with password
How to unprotect Excel sheet without password
How to protect a workbook in Excel
Unlock a protected workbook
Password protect an Excel file from opening
Password protect a workbook from modifying
What you need to know about Excel worksheet

protection
Worksheet protection in Excel is not a security feature. It's is not actually intended to prevent
people from accessing data in a password-protected worksheet. Why? Because Microsoft Excel
uses a very simple encryption algorithm for worksheet protection. Even when you protect your
Excel worksheet with a password, that password is very easy to break.
In older versions (below Microsoft Excel 2010), it doesn't even matter how long and complex
your password is. Anyone who has at least some basic knowledge of VBA can crack it in
minutes (here's an example of the VBA code that easily cracks passwords in Excel 2010 and
lower versions).
The recent versions of Excel 2013 and 2016 use more sophisticated methods of sheet
protection, but they are also vulnerable and can be unlocked without knowing a password. In
other words, if someone really wants to get access to a protected sheet, they will.
So, does this mean that Excel worksheet protection is absolutely pointless? Not at all! It makes
sense to lock Excel sheets to avoid accidental changes in the sheet contents. A common
example is Locking formula cells to prevent inadvertent erasure or modification of formulas.
The bottom line is - lock an Excel spreadsheet to prevent other users from accidentally
tampering with your data, but never store sensitive information in your Excel sheets.
If you strive to ensure the maximum security protection for your Excel files, be sure to do all
of the following:
1. Use the modern versions of Excel 2010, Excel 2013, and 2016 with enhanced data encryption
mechanisms.
2. Protect your sheets with strong passwords that include different types of alpha numeric
characters and special symbols. At that, try to make passwords as random as possible, for
example by using our password generating tool.
3. Protect the workbook structure to prevent other people from adding, moving, renaming,
deleting or unhiding your sheets.
4. For workbook-level security, encrypt the workbook with different passwords from opening
and modifying.
5. If possible, store your Excel files with sensitive information in a secure location, e.g. on an
encrypted hard drive.
How to protect Excel sheet

To protect a sheet in Excel 2016, 2013 and 2010, perform the following steps.
1. Right click a worksheet tab at the bottom of your screen and select Protect Sheet from
the context menu.
Or, click the Protect Sheet button on the Review tab, in the Changes group.
2. In the Protect Sheet dialog window, do the following:
To password protect your Excel sheet, type a password in the corresponding field. Be
sure to remember the password or store it in a safe location because you will need it later
to unprotect the sheet.
If the worksheet protection is nothing more than a precaution against accidental

modification of the sheet contents by yourself or by the members of your local team, you
may not want to bother about memorizing the password and leave the password field
empty. In this case, unprotecting the sheet takes just a single click on the Unprotect Sheet
button on the ribbon or in the sheet tab's right-click menu.
Select the actions you allow the users to perform.
By default, the following 2 options are selected: Select locked cells and Select unlocked cells.
If you leave only these two options selected, the users of your sheet, including yourself,
will be able only to select cells (both locked and unlocked).
To allow some other actions such as sorting, filtering, formatting cells, deleting or
inserting rows and columns, check the corresponding boxes.
If you don't check any action, users will only be able to view the contents of your Excel
sheet.
Click the OK button.
3. The Confirm Password dialog box will pop-up prompting you to retype the password so that
an accidental misprint won't lock your Excel sheet forever. Retype the password and click
OK. Done!
How to unprotect Excel sheet

As you have just seen, it's very easy to password protect a sheet in Excel. Unprotecting a
spreadsheet is even easier, provided that you know the password. Though, unlocking an Excel
spreadsheet without password is no big deal either :)
How to unprotect Excel sheet with password

If you know the password for the protected sheet, removing protection is a matter of seconds.
Just do any of the following:
Right-click the sheet tab, and select Unprotect Sheet from the context menu.
On the Review tab, in the Changes group, click Unprotect Sheet.
On the Home tab, in the Cells group, click Format, and select Unprotect Sheet from the drop-
down menu.
If you are dealing with a password-protected worksheet, Excel will ask you to enter the
password. Type the password and click OK.
If the worksheet was not protected with password, clicking the Unprotect Sheet button is all it
takes to unlock the sheet.
How to unprotect Excel sheet without password

As mentioned in the beginning of this tutorial, Excel worksheet protection is quite weak even in
the recent versions of Excel 2013 and Excel 2016. If you need to edit a password protected
sheet but you cannot remember the password, try to unlock that Excel spreadsheet by using
one of the following methods.
Unlock Excel spreadsheet with VBA code (for Excel 2010 and lower)
If you are using Excel 2010 or older version, you can unlock a password-protected sheet with
the following macro.
1. Press Alt + F11 to open the Visual Basic Editor.
2. Right-click the workbook name on the left pane (Project-VBAProject pane) and select Insert >
Module from the context menu.
3. In the window that appears, paste in the following code:
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

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
4. Press F5 or click the Run button on the toolbar and wait a couple of minutes. The macro
will report a cracked password, which is not the original one (always some combination of
A's and B's), but nevertheless it works.
If you are not very comfortable with VBA, you can find the detailed guidance in the following
tutorial: How to insert and run VBA code in Excel.
If you need to unprotect Excel sheet without password in the modern versions of Excel 2013
and Excel 2016, try one of free tools, for example Password Protection Remover add-in for
Excel.
Excel.
Copy the protected sheet contents to another worksheet

Another way (or rather a workaround) to unlock an Excel sheet that was protected with
password is to copy its entire contents to a new sheet. Here's how:
1. Open the password-protected sheet.
2. With the cursor positioned in cell A1, press Shift + Ctrl + End to select all used cells in the
worksheet.
3. Press Ctrl + C to copy the selected cells.
4. Create a new sheet in the current workbook or in a different workbook (to create a new
Excel file, simply press Ctrl + N ).
5. In the new blank worksheet, place the cursor in A1 and press Ctrl + V to paste the contents
of the password-protected sheet.
Notes:
This method works only if the Select locked cells and Select unlocked cells actions are allowed in
the protected spreadsheet.
If the password-protected worksheet has external links to other sheets or workbooks, you
may need to re-create those links manually.
You can use Paste Special to copy / paste the column widths so you won't need to adjust
them in the new sheet manually.
How to protect a workbook in Excel
Apart from protecting the sheet contents, you may also want lock the entire workbook to
prevent users from adding, moving, renaming or deleting worksheets, and viewing hidden
sheets.
To protect the workbook, perform the following steps:
1. On the Review tab, in the Changes group, click the Protect Workbook button.
2. Under Protect workbook for, select one of the two options, or both:
Check the Structure box to protect the structure of a workbook. This will prevent the
following actions:
Viewing hidden worksheets.
Renaming, moving, hiding or deleting sheets.
Inserting new sheets and chart sheets. However, users will be able to insert a chart in
an existing worksheet.
Moving or copying sheets to another workbook.

Check the Windows box to retain the size and position of workbook windows. This will
prevent users from moving, resizing, minimizing, or closing the workbook windows.
Note. The Windows option is not available (greyed out) in Excel 2013 and Excel 2016, as
shown in the screenshot above. It is because Microsoft introduced the Single
Document Interface in Excel 2013, where each workbook has its own top-level window
that can be minimized, restored, and closed.
3. In the Password box, type a password, and click the OK button.

As indicated on the dialog window, a password is optional. However, if you do not enter a
password, then anybody will be able to unlock your workbook with a button click.
4. Retype the password in the Confirm Password window and click OK. That's it!
How to unlock a protected workbook in Excel

To remove the workbook protection, do the following:
1. Click the Protect Workbook button again (in a locked workbook, it is highlighted in green
like in the screenshot below):
2. Type the password if prompted.
3. Save the workbook.
Important note! Protecting the workbook structure should not be confused with workbook-
level password encryption that can prevent other users from opening or/and modifying
your workbook. If you are interested in this level of workbook protection, check out the next
sections of this tutorial.
Password protect Excel workbook from opening

If you store your workbooks in a shared location such as a company local network, and you
want to prevent other users from viewing your Excel files, you can encrypt your workbook with
password that won't even let other people open it.
1. In the workbook you want to encrypt, click File > Info, click the Protect Workbook button, and
select Encrypt with Password in the drop-down menu.
2. The Encrypt Document window will appear, you enter a password in the Password box, and
click OK.
.
By default, Microsoft Excel uses AES 128-bit advanced encryption, and you can supply a
password up to 255 characters.
3. Retype the password in the Reenter password box, and click OK.
4. Save your workbook.
To remove the workbook encryption, repeat the above steps, delete the password from the
Password box, click OK, and then save your workbook.
Tip. In addition to password-protection, you can secure your Excel files further by using the
BitLocker Drive Encryption, which is available in the Ultimate and Enterprise editions of
Windows Vista and Windows.
Password protect Excel workbook from modifying
If you don't mind other users opening your Excel file but you want to prevent them from
making any changes to your workbook, perform the following steps.
1. In your Excel workbook, click the Save As button, and then click the Tools button at the
bottom of the window.
2. In the Tools drop-down menu, select General Options.
3. In the General Options dialog window, type a password in the Password to modify box.
Additionally, you can select the Read-only option, which is recommended.
Tip. If you want to protect your Excel file both from modifying and opening, type the
passwords in the Password to open and Password to modify boxes. It can be the same
password of two different ones.
4. Retype the password in the Confirm Password dialog, and click OK. If you've entered 2
passwords in the previous step, you will be asked to confirm both.
5. Finally, click the Save button in the Save As dialog.
To remove the password protection, repeat the above steps, and delete the password(s) from
the Password to open and Password to modify boxes. Then click the Save button to save your
workbook.
This is how you can protect an Excel sheet and lock the entire workbook from changing or
opening. However, sometimes you may not want to go that far and rather lock only certain cells
in your sheet. And this is exactly what we are going to discuss in the next article. I thank you
for reading and hope to see you on our blog next week.
You may also be interested in:

How to create formulas in Excel
Microsoft Excel formulas with examples
How to display formulas in Excel
How to copy formulas in Excel
How to hide and lock formulas in Excel
How to edit, evaluate and debug formulas in Excel
Excel formulas not working, not updating, not calculating
58 Responses to "How to protect and unprotect Excel sheet with

or without password"
1 A CHUMAN KUMAR PATRO says:
April 25, 2016 at 1:02 pm
how to unprotected the work book without any password, if password is forget
Reply

April 26, 2016 at 5:48 am
how to unprotected the work book if password is forget.
Reply
Svetlana Cheusheva says:

April 26, 2016 at 9:34 am
Hi!
If yo are using Excel 2010 or earlier, you can unprotected the workbook without
password by using this script.
For Excel 2013 or 2016, you can use one of free password protection removers, for
example this one:
http://www.spreadsheet1.com/password-protection-remover-free-office-excel-add-
in.html
Reply
Yogesh Garg says:

July 29, 2016 at 9:52 am
how to unprotected the work book which is in a format made by others.
Reply
April 27, 2016 at 4:19 am
without any software can we have unprotected workbook
thanks for cooperate with me
Reply
4 chisom israel onah. says:

May 2, 2016 at 8:04 am
its awesome..... it worked perfectly well
Reply
5 Rajesh says:
May 18, 2016 at 4:40 pm
hi
one help please
i have one excel sheet i want give that to one of my friend but i want set limit the for
copying sheet
such as if i set limit for one time copy then after pasting it no more copy can be made or it
should ask for password please help as early as possible or is there any other way to solve
my problem
Reply
6 Anonymous says:
May 19, 2016 at 9:37 am
How can prevent other from copying a protected worksheet
Reply
7 John Giesen says:

May 19, 2016 at 12:46 pm
When I follow your instructions, which are very good, when i click on protect workbook, the
drop down window opens but nothing is clickable? Any thoughts as to why these options
won't work for me? Also, on the tools drop down, the only line that can be completed is the
second line, the first line won't allow me to put in a password, after I go to "save as" and
select the file.
John
Reply
8 wami says:
June 7, 2016 at 10:05 pm
worked like charm,

saved many hours of trouble.
Very much appreciated.
Reply
9 Nath says:
June 29, 2016 at 11:28 pm
can you save the password as text in the VBA code so if you forget you can easily find
without running your scipt above?
Reply
Amit says:
August 4, 2016 at 6:45 pm
yes, write it in the comments :)
'Password goes here
Reply
10 Azazel says:
July 3, 2016 at 8:14 am
Awesome. It works perfectly!
Reply
11 dave haine says:

July 7, 2016 at 10:49 pm
Doesn't work in excel 2016, despite them saying it does
Reply
12 Rachel says:
July 11, 2016 at 8:59 am
I have not forgotten my password, but all unprotect sheet access is not highlighted
therefore can not click on to enter my password.
I have also tried entering your VBA code, but when right click a box appears stating
"Project is unviewable"
Please help
Reply
13 Rahul Bhoye says:

July 27, 2016 at 10:41 am
Thanks!!!!!
Reply
14 Hitesh Pandav says:

July 28, 2016 at 11:32 am
Thamks.
I have Solve my problem to guide me.
Reply
15 wayne says:
August 5, 2016 at 1:33 pm
Hi How to protect certain rows/columns only in excel (where my formula will not be
editable).
Thanks
Reply
16 John Alves says:

August 8, 2016 at 6:56 am
hi,
do you have a solution for 2016 please
thanks
Reply
17 pratik says:
August 17, 2016 at 11:59 am
thanks for this it's really work properly. Fantastic
Reply
18 jacksonlimboz says:
August 23, 2016 at 12:27 pm
Excel file password breaker tool is available to remove lost password from Excel file. This
application enables to open locked Word and Access file password also without any
obstruction.
Reply
19 Evan says:
August 23, 2016 at 8:28 pm
Looking for how to set a workbook to unProtected mode due to untrusted from a network
site.
Reply
20 Angel says:
September 9, 2016 at 3:34 am
Amazing! Thank you! Though I dont have a password to a worksheet, I unlocked the
worksheet.
Reply
21 godfrey says:
how can i un protect my 2007 excel sheet
Reply
22 Ivan says:
Thanks very much! It worked for me!
Reply
23 gandhi marule says:
hello,
i have hyperlinks to different sheets in my excel workbook, but i want to password protect
them i.e. people cannot click and go to that particular sheet...how do i do it? or
alternatively a way of hiding sheet only if you have a password can you open the
sheet...how do i do it ?
Reply
24 SPORK says:
September 20, 2016 at 2:25 pm
VBA is also passoword protected so cannot insert module.
Reply
25 dan says:
September 21, 2016 at 3:43 pm
Dear sir,
I have protected shared Excel doc. I do not know the password, how can I remove the
protection?.
Thanks
Reply
26 Mr D says:
Try the instructions above it works
Reply
27 Boke says:
October 7, 2016 at 5:06 am
Hi,
i have set Excel file(.xlsm) Password protection from modifying (!!) and allowed to open the
file as read-only. How i can use VBA macros to determine that passord protection from
modifying is set or not before the file saving.
And how i can write in VBA macros to unprotect and protect again exactly for modifying
only ?
Reply
28 arif bhati says:

October 14, 2016 at 6:17 pm
Thanks a lot its working
Reply
29 Nitin says:
Thankx so much. i forget my password if you don't help me my data will be loss
thankx again sir
Reply
30 NIRANJAN says:
Awesome!! It worked! Never knew we could unprotect excel sheets so easily.
Reply
31 Philip says:
October 22, 2016 at 11:46 am
I don't think the VBA script works to unlock a password protected workbook in Windows 10
with Excel 2010. Pressing Alt-F11 doesn't access a list of workbook files.
Reply
32 RJ says:
I have tried this several times with great luck. I now have an old workbook from last year.
The code works on some sheets but not all of them.
It also looks like there are some sheets I cannot see
This is in windows 7 with Excel 2013.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated
Reply
33 dagmid says:
October 28, 2016 at 8:02 am
Hi there,
thank you for your advice. if VBAProject has protected how can i remove password.
Name is not XLSX. XLSM
How to remove VBAProject password?
Thank you.
Reply
34 Abik says:
November 5, 2016 at 11:39 am
good job guys
Reply
35 G says:
November 11, 2016 at 4:26 pm
If the file is on a server that has a rights management system you can also select people
from the address book to have read only access
Reply
36 Yganesh Thaker says:
its working tx guys
Reply
37 reza says:
November 20, 2016 at 3:35 pm
like a lot
Reply
38 Umesh says:
Its Working..............
Thank you very Much
Reply
39 Rijo says:
Dear friend,
while iam trying RUN...getting the error message of
Compile error:
Invalid outside procedure
pls help
Reply
40 Kelly says:
December 1, 2016 at 12:26 pm
it didnt work... when I clicked run, it shows

"Compile error:"
Expected: New or type name
pls Help!
Reply
41 Vasanth KS says:
Hi,
It's really helpful on this regards!

Thank you so much!
Reply
42 Bobby says:
December 7, 2016 at 10:14 am
man, i like your PasswordBreaker. very great! thanks a lot.
Reply
43 James says:
Very good articles. It works very well. Thank you very much.
Reply
44 Nalini says:
This link really helps! Thank you so much..
Reply
45 Andy says:
OMG, you saved me hours and hours of work. This VBI script worked like a charm ....thanks
so much.
Reply
46 Tom Stewart says:

January 1, 2017 at 10:10 pm
I've been working on a workbook with several tabs with worksheets. I was trying to protect
columns and cells on on the various worksheets. The protection did not seem to be
working on a couple of the worksheets and I was experimenting trying to get it to work.
Now I have several functions(Protect & unprotect worksheet, protect & unprotect
workbook, allow users to edit ranges) highlighted in red and not functioning a all. How do I
correct this?
Reply
47 Ade says:
January 2, 2017 at 10:27 pm
I have a protected worksheet and for got the password. The VB script is not responding
when i run the script on my excel 2010. it hangs and i have to go into window task
manager to end the run. Help
Reply
48 Sharma says:
January 3, 2017 at 5:15 am
How to permanently protect an excel sheet so that others cant look at the VBA functions? Is
there a way? I would like the hours of work put into my sheet to be protect from others
forever!
Seems the password protection can be easily broken. Please let me know.
Help!!
Reply
49 Emma Jaks says:

Thanks for this information.
Reply
50 Derek K says:
Thanks for the info. It helped me a lot.
Reply
51 Wojciech Marusiak says:

January 10, 2017 at 10:23 am
It worked like a charm. Thanks a lot.
Reply
52 Anne says:
January 11, 2017 at 11:54 am
HI,
I am working on a template that is workbook protected. I can't recall the password and i
need to change the name of a sheet. Please assist. Excel 2016
Thanks.
Reply
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HOME PRODUCTS DOWNLOADS SUPPORT FORUMS BLOG ABOUT US

How to protect and unprotect Excel sheet with or

Excel worksheet protection - the basics

How to password protect an Excel sheet

How to unlock Excel spreadsheet

How to unprotect Excel sheet without password

How to protect a workbook in Excel

Unlock a protected workbook

Password protect an Excel file from opening

Password protect a workbook from modifying

What you need to know about Excel worksheet

How to protect Excel sheet

2. In the Protect Sheet dialog window, do the following:

If the worksheet protection is nothing more than a precaution against accidental

Select the actions you allow the users to perform.

Click the OK button.

How to unprotect Excel sheet

How to unprotect Excel sheet with password

How to unprotect Excel sheet without password

1. Press Alt + F11 to open the Visual Basic Editor.

3. In the window that appears, paste in the following code:

Dim i As Integer, j As Integer, k As Integer

On Error Resume Next

For i = 65 To 66: For j = 65 To 66: For k = 65 To 66

ActiveSheet.Unprotect Chr(i) & Chr(j) & Chr(k) & _

If ActiveSheet.ProtectContents = False Then

Next: Next: Next: Next: Next: Next

Copy the protected sheet contents to another worksheet

1. Open the password-protected sheet.

3. Press Ctrl + C to copy the selected cells.

To protect the workbook, perform the following steps:

Viewing hidden worksheets.

Renaming, moving, hiding or deleting sheets.

Moving or copying sheets to another workbook.

3. In the Password box, type a password, and click the OK button.

How to unlock a protected workbook in Excel

2. Type the password if prompted.

3. Save the workbook.

Password protect Excel workbook from opening

4. Save your workbook.

2. In the Tools drop-down menu, select General Options.

5. Finally, click the Save button in the Save As dialog.

You may also be interested in:

Microsoft Excel formulas with examples

How to display formulas in Excel

How to copy formulas in Excel

How to hide and lock formulas in Excel

How to edit, evaluate and debug formulas in Excel

Excel formulas not working, not updating, not calculating

58 Responses to "How to protect and unprotect Excel sheet with

2 A CHUMAN KUMAR PATRO says:

how to unprotected the work book if password is forget.

Svetlana Cheusheva says:

Yogesh Garg says:

how to unprotected the work book which is in a format made by others.

without any software can we have unprotected workbook

thanks for cooperate with me

4 chisom israel onah. says:

its awesome..... it worked perfectly well

How can prevent other from copying a protected worksheet

7 John Giesen says:

worked like charm,

yes, write it in the comments :)