How to Remove a Password From an Excel File (Free Way First)

At a glance

First: which Excel password do you have?

Excel has four kinds of password, and only one of them is real encryption. Microsoft says it plainly: "Worksheet level protection isn't intended as a security feature." Find yours before you spend anything, because the fix is completely different for each.

To check which one you have, open the file in Excel. If it opens without a prompt, the lock is a sheet, workbook or modify password. If Excel demands a password just to see the data, that's the encrypted password to open, and it's the only hard case. Accent and Krylack also name the exact protection and encryption as soon as you open the file in them.

Try this free first: you know the password

When you know the password, Excel itself takes it off at no cost, and you don't need any of the tools below. You do need the desktop app: Microsoft says passwords "can't be added, changed, removed, or recovered from Excel for the web."

Remove the password to open

1. Open the workbook and type the password.
2. Choose File, Info, Protect Workbook, then Encrypt with Password.
3. Clear the dots in the Password box and click OK.
4. Save the workbook. It now opens without a password.

Unprotect a sheet

1. Go to the protected sheet.
2. Choose Review, then Unprotect Sheet (it's also under File, Info, Protect).
3. Type the password and click OK. Repeat for each protected sheet.

Unprotect the workbook structure

1. Choose Review, then Protect Workbook.
2. Type the password and click OK. The structure is now editable again.

On a Mac the sheet and workbook steps are the same, on the Review tab. Microsoft notes that Excel for Mac passwords are limited to 15 characters, so a Windows workbook with a longer password to open won't open on a Mac at all. Use a Windows PC to take it off.

You forgot it: what's really possible, and the honest odds

A forgotten sheet, workbook or VBA password is near-certain to come off, because Excel never encrypts your data with those: it only stores a short hash and checks what you type against it. A forgotten password to open is a different matter. That password encrypts the whole file, so software has to try candidates until one fits, and your odds depend almost entirely on which Excel version saved the file.

The slowness of modern files is deliberate. Those 100,000 hashing rounds exist so that each guess costs real time, which is exactly what stops someone searching your file. It also means the search can take longer than it's worth. The table below turns the vendors' published speeds into plain waiting times, assuming the search has to try every combination (a real search often finishes sooner, when the password turns up partway through).

Our arithmetic from Passcovery's published speeds for Accent 25.04: 58.5 million passwords a second on old .xls and 1,825 a second on Excel 2013-2024 files, both on a Ryzen 9 9950X, and Passcovery's figure of about 35,000 a second for the same modern files on an NVIDIA RTX 5070 Ti. A slower CPU or card changes the numbers, and Accent EXCEL's demo caps each run at 30 minutes, so read the estimate it shows on your own file before you pay.

The lesson is that what you remember matters more than a faster PC. Passcovery's own example: an eight-character password of letters and digits is 218 trillion combinations, but a positional mask that fixes the parts you recall, such as a known word at the start and two digits at the end, can cut it to 61 billion and turn months of searching into hours. If you remember nothing and the password was long and random on a modern file, plan on not getting that file back, and build the next one around a password you'll keep.

Accent EXCEL Password Recovery: the one for Excel lockouts

Accent EXCEL Password Recovery 25.04 (Home Edition), with the current password, speed and estimated time fields waiting at the bottom until you open a file.

Accent EXCEL Password Recovery, from Passcovery, is built only for Excel and covers every version from Excel 6 to Excel 2024 and Microsoft 365 (.xls, .xlsx, .xlsm, .xlsb). Open a workbook and it reads the Excel version and the protection, removes the simple passwords on the spot, and sets up a search for the password to open if there is one. The sheet, workbook-structure, modify and VBA passwords all come off in under a second, whatever their length, because Excel keeps them as hashes rather than using them to encrypt the data.

Five protected sheets in an Excel 97 workbook, each with a working password found at once and marked "Password collision". The window is the sibling Accent OFFICE Password Recovery, which Passcovery shows for the same function.

For a forgotten password to open, Accent EXCEL searches on the CPU alone, with hand-tuned assembly on every core. It offers brute force, positional masks, dictionaries with more than 20 kinds of mutation (capitalize the first letter, append a year, swap a for @), and scenarios that chain several of those and stop at the first hit, with progress saved so you can resume. The free demo runs at full speed on your own file and shows the estimate, which is the number that decides whether to bother.

A search on an Excel 2003 .xls (40-bit RC4): 2.5 billion candidates at about 4 million a second, estimated time 8 minutes 16 seconds. This is an older build on an older PC; current speeds on .xls are far higher.

Download Accent EXCEL DemoBuy Accent EXCEL Password Recovery

Accent OFFICE Password Recovery: add a graphics card and the other formats

The recovery wizard on an Excel 2013 workbook: protection "MS Office 2013+, SHA512, 256-bit AES", recovery speed "Very slow", maximum password length 47. The demo shows this before you pay.

Accent OFFICE Password Recovery is Passcovery's all-formats tool: Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access files, plus OpenOffice and LibreOffice documents. It does everything Accent EXCEL does and adds two things that matter on a modern .xlsx. First, it puts a graphics card to work: an NVIDIA RTX 5070 Ti reaches about 35,000 passwords a second on Excel 2013-and-later files, 19 times a fast CPU, and it supports NVIDIA, AMD and Intel Arc cards. Second, for old Excel 97-2003 .xls files it offers a "key search" that works out the 40-bit encryption key directly, which always succeeds in minutes to hours no matter how long the password was, though it gives you the file rather than the password.

The trade-off is the price and the licensing. The Standard license is $120 for the first year against Accent EXCEL's $40, it renews at $36 a year, and the cheaper Basic license has no graphics card support at all. If your only problem is Excel and the file is old or lightly protected, Accent EXCEL is the better buy. Accent OFFICE earns its price when a modern .xlsx open password needs a graphics card, or when the lockout spans several Office programs.

Download Accent OFFICE DemoBuy Accent OFFICE Password Recovery

Krylack Office Password Recovery: a one-time price for forgotten open passwords

Krylack's own screenshot: an agile AES file with about 100,000 key-derivation rounds, a four-step plan, and the password found at 4.73 thousand guesses a second using a GTX 1080 Ti and a Core i7. It's an Access file, but Excel 2013-and-later files use the same agile AES-256.

Krylack Office Password Recovery searches for a forgotten open password on Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access files, from Office 97 through Microsoft 365, under a single one-time license. It reads the file, reports the encryption, and runs a plan you can reorder: dictionary, dictionary with rules, digits, then letters and digits, with a Guided setup for anything you remember. It sends the slow modern files to a supported graphics card, and long runs can stop and resume. At $29.95 paid once, with no renewal, it's the value pick when the job is a forgotten open password and you don't want a yearly bill.

The important limit is scope. Krylack says this edition targets "the document's open password" only. A protected sheet, a workbook-structure lock or a VBA password is, in its own words, "a separate restrict-editing or worksheet-protection setting", and this tool doesn't touch it. For those, use the free Excel steps if you know the password, or Accent EXCEL if you've forgotten it.

Download Krylack TrialBuy Krylack Office Password Recovery

Prices side by side

Which should you choose?

Who should skip these: skip all three if you know the password, since Excel removes it free. Skip Krylack if your problem is a protected sheet or VBA code rather than an open password. Skip Accent OFFICE if your only lockout is Excel and the file is old or lightly protected, where Accent EXCEL does the same for a third of the price. And skip the paid tools entirely if the password is long, random and on a modern file: you'd be paying for a search that won't finish. There's no Mac version of any of them; a Mac user runs them on a Windows PC or copies the workbook across.

What commonly goes wrong

• Buying a tool for the wrong lock. A forgotten open password and a forgotten sheet password are different problems. Krylack handles the first, not the second; Accent EXCEL handles both. Check which one you have before you pay.
• Expecting the original sheet password back. Excel stores only a short hash of a sheet password, so a recovery tool returns a different, longer password that Excel accepts just the same. It unprotects the sheet; it won't tell you what you first typed.
• Assuming any open password can be recovered. A long random password on a modern .xlsx stays locked. Read the demo's estimate before you buy, and note that Passcovery doesn't refund a password it couldn't find.
• Setting the search too narrow. If the real password falls outside the length or character set you told the tool to try, the search ends empty after all that time. If you're unsure, widen the range, even though it's slower.
• Forgetting the copy has no protection. Once the password is off, anyone who gets the file can open it, so store the unprotected workbook with that in mind.

FAQs

How do I remove a password from an Excel file for free?

If you know the password, Excel removes it for free: open the file, go to File, Info, Protect Workbook, Encrypt with Password, clear the box and save. For a locked sheet, use Review, Unprotect Sheet. You need the Excel desktop app, because Excel for the web can't add, change or remove passwords.

Can I remove an Excel password if I forgot it?

A forgotten sheet, workbook or VBA password comes off almost at once with Accent EXCEL Password Recovery, because Excel doesn't encrypt your data with those. A forgotten password to open has to be searched for, and a short or memorable one usually comes back, while a long random one on a modern .xlsx realistically won't.

How do I unprotect an Excel sheet without the password?

Accent EXCEL Password Recovery removes a forgotten sheet or workbook-structure password from your own file in under a second, since those are stored as hashes rather than used to encrypt the data. Microsoft has no supported way to do it, and Krylack Office handles open passwords only, not sheet protection.

How long does it take to recover an Excel open password?

It depends entirely on the Excel version and the password. On an old Excel 97-2003 .xls, Accent EXCEL tries tens of millions a second, so short passwords fall in minutes. On an Excel 2013-or-later .xlsx, a fast CPU manages about 1,800 a second, so a six-character mixed password can take most of a year without a graphics card or a mask.

Does a modern .xlsx need a graphics card?

For a forgotten open password on an Excel 2013-or-later file, a graphics card helps enormously: an RTX 5070 Ti runs about 35,000 passwords a second against a fast CPU's 1,800. Accent OFFICE Password Recovery and Krylack Office both use one; Accent EXCEL is CPU only, which is fine for sheet passwords and old .xls files.

Is it safe to use an online Excel password remover?

Uploading a private workbook to a website means handing your data to a stranger's server, which is a bad idea for financial, payroll or personal spreadsheets. Accent EXCEL Password Recovery, Accent OFFICE and Krylack Office all run entirely on your own PC, and only contact the vendor once to activate.

Is there a Mac version?

None of these three tools has a Mac version; they're Windows only. A Mac user can run them on a Windows PC or virtual machine and copy the workbook across. If you know the password, Excel for Mac removes it on the Review tab, with a 15-character limit on the password length.

Is it legal to remove a password from an Excel file?

Removing a password from your own workbook, or one you're authorized to change, is normally fine. Taking protection off someone else's spreadsheet, or a file you're not entitled to open, may break the terms you received it under or the law where you live, so ask the owner first.