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How to unprotect Word files without knowing the password

[posted: 2015-02-16]  [81 comments]

I’m regularly annoyed at password-protected Microsoft Word files that only permit editing of
certain aspects of the document such as form fields. By itself, Word’s “Restricted Editing” isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s the fact that file creators are
usually very conservative and prefer to disallow editing something “just in case”, rather than giving users the option to add text somewhere
unexpected.
The result is often that in order to complete a form, one must print it out and amend it with a pen, or convert to PDF and use the “comment” function.

Looking for a way around, I recently found out how to remove the Document Protection from Word files without knowing the actual password*:

* Note that this method only works with Word Docs that are protected from editing, not files that require a password to open.

1. Open the Word file in question (doc, docx)

2. Choose “File”, “Save File As”, and make sure the file format is set to “Rich-Text-Format (*.rtf)”. Close the file in Word (important!)

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3. Open the new Rich-Text file with a text editor (e.g. Notepad or Notepad++). You can do so by dragging and dropping it into the editor
window, or choose “File”, “Open File”, and set the file format to “All files (*.*)”.
4. Find (ctrl-f) “passwordhash” and replace the string that follows with something else (e.g. “nopassword”). Save and close the file in your
text editor.

5. Re-open the modified Rich-Text file in Word, go to “Review”, “Restrict Editing” and click on “Stop Protection” (german version:
“Überprüfen” – “Bearbeitung Einschränken” – “Schutz aufheben”). Uncheck all tick-boxes.

6. Done. You’ve unprotected your Word file without ever knowing the password.
7. Optional: Convert your file back to its original file format by selecting “File”, “Save As”, and choosing the original file format.

I’ve successfully tested the above workaround with Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 and Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2013. Please let me
know whether this works with older/newer Office versions by commenting on this post!

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[category: computers & technology] [tags: hacks, how to, Microsoft Office, word]

81 comments on “How to unprotect Word files without knowing the password”

« Older Comments

1.

Samantha
November 10, 2016 at 5:48 am

thanks for your work on this. worked perfectly for Office 2016.
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2.

mabat.eng@gmail.com
November 15, 2016 at 9:08 pm

better is to save as HTML, it is save forms.

3.

piecevcake

November 26, 2016 at 9:58 am

I have a weird form where whole table cells are locked, the content greyed out, and you cant select part of your inserted text within the cell: if
you use shift+anything it selects the whole cell! (But you can select and edit your input in wordpad, thanks for the idea). Can't select the whole
document to copy it. Can't select anything! Search of RTF with notepad did not find password, or protect, or edit, or any other string I could think
of... it did find the word "author" which specified the author's name... but looking around the screeds of surrounding gobbledegook I couldn't see
anything else that looked promising. My workaround with other protected documents has been to simply copy the entire document to a new
document (have to copy the headers and footers separately for some reason), but in this document, you can't select all! But I could select the
whole document in wordpad and paste to new wordpad doc. it removed all the fields, but at least i can edit the dam thing now! PROBLEM: of
course wordpad can't access headers so there is no way to copy the headers which cant be accessed in the original form... aargh!

4.

piecevcake
November 26, 2016 at 10:26 am

Addendum to previous comment-RESOLVED: In my document, in the original word docx, I clicked developer tab, clicked "stop protection"
button, unticked "allow only this type of editing in this document". Now I CAN format and edit it. (I didn't even need to select the whole
document, copy paste to a new document in this case, I don't think it password protected.)

5.

Lowb

November 29, 2016 at 1:49 am

Works great on Word 2016

6.

Mike

December 2, 2016 at 1:42 am

Good work, very handy tip. Mike in Michigan.

7.

marina

December 8, 2016 at 4:12 am

Thank you, this saved me a lot of work!

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8.

4dtp
December 9, 2016 at 6:17 am

Thank you very much it worked with me.

9.

Ammar

December 16, 2016 at 12:08 am

Thanks a lot,, it works also on Word 97-2003

10.

Dave Thorne
January 4, 2017 at 8:44 pm

thanks worked great with office 2016

11.

Peter

January 12, 2017 at 1:35 am

Fantastic! I am so useless when it comes to IT and always technically challenged but this worked like magic! Does this make me an expert now
:)? Thanks a lot!

12.

Hank

January 12, 2017 at 4:00 am

Perfect, worked on Word 2016.

13.

Anas Naim

January 26, 2017 at 8:09 pm

Perfect.. thanks

14.

Lori S

January 27, 2017 at 2:10 am

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Worked for 2010. Helps to know a little code. :)

15.

Anthony
January 28, 2017 at 4:34 am

Thanks a lot for this!!

16.

Daniel

March 17, 2017 at 11:47 pm

Thank you my friend, it worked perfectly on Word 2016!

17.

norafidah14@gmail.com
March 18, 2017 at 7:56 pm

thank you. good information. its really works.

18.

Herman

March 22, 2017 at 9:42 pm

Worked perfect in 2003. Thanks a lot! You saved me a lot of keyboard work

19.

adfkk

March 28, 2017 at 4:15 pm

Thank you man it worked for me in MS office 2013

20.

Joseph

March 29, 2017 at 12:34 pm

Thank you. May good Karma give you good fortunes for you kindness.

21.

soniab

March 30, 2017 at 9:56 pm

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Thank you for this very useful tip

22.

Richard S
April 6, 2017 at 11:02 am

Excellent, you saved me the day with this! :)

23.

davrog

April 12, 2017 at 6:24 pm

Worked perfectly, thank you!

24.

youpidou
April 13, 2017 at 5:07 pm

Very useful, thank you!

25.

Roger

April 15, 2017 at 2:41 am

Thank you. Worked in Word for Mac 2011

26.

Irfan Saleem (Saudi Arabia)

April 18, 2017 at 10:15 pm

Super information help me alot

27.

Jai P Sharma

April 29, 2017 at 12:12 am

Hey Team, I have a word 2016 file, which I encrypted with a password and forget the password. It's critical from me. I tried above steps and
seems missing something and unable to retrieve. Help me with the steps please :)

28.

markus

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April 29, 2017 at 12:41 am

these instructions only work for the protection against editing parts of a document, not for document encryption (i.e. only being able to open the
document with the right password).

29.

chris
April 29, 2017 at 5:37 pm

HUGE THANK YOU – WORKS BRILLIANTLY!

30.

kruti majmudar

May 9, 2017 at 8:14 am

thank you so much! worked simply and perfectly and saved me loads of work.

31.

JRz
May 11, 2017 at 4:57 am

Thank you. Worked Word 2003

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