You need a reliable and effective app to recover Zip/7z passwords when you cannot decrypt a compressed file containing sensitive data. The password can’t be removed directly without knowing it.
While several web portals and PC applications are available, picking the right one could be challenging, especially if you don’t come from a technical background. Considering this, the following sections list some online solutions and desktop programs that many users appreciate because of their efficiency.
Also, before proceeding, it is essential to understand how recovery tools work. In general, almost all unlockers use the three attack types below to recover passwords:
Dictionary Attack – Some programs have a built-in dictionary containing commonly used passwords that they try to unlock your files. Sometimes, picking this method also allows you to use a custom dictionary you may have created or obtained from a reliable source for password recovery.
Masked Attack – This attack type is helpful when you know some part of the password, such as the number of characters and their types (numeric, alphanumeric, special characters, or a combination of all).
Brute-Force Attack – This one tries almost every combination of characters and numbers to guess the password. The process takes a significant amount of time to crack Zip passwords, and therefore you must pick this option only when all other attacks fail to work.
To know more about password recovery, check this post. Once you understand various attack types and how they work, you are good to go.
Part 1: 7z/Zip Password Unlockers Online
This section comprises the top three 7z/Zip password unlockers online and explains how they perform.
WARNING
A quick heads-up before you proceed further. Once you use online tools, your file is on the vendors’ server. There is always a risk of exposure to people unknown to you, but usually this won’t happen and it depends on the security measures the vendors take.
1. LostMyPass Zip/7z Password Recovery Online (Free & Paid)
LostMyPass is not only a 7z password recovery portal but can also unlock encrypted Zip, RAR, PDF, Excel, Word, and PowerPoint file types. Check my deep review about LostMyPass.
LostMyPass offers a free version but it can only recover weak passwords. It’s quick and effective to some people with a success rate of 22%.
If you believe the encryption password for your file is strong, you can go for their paid service that offers up to a 61% success rate. Although it’s not a free service, you can test whether it works or not for free because you only need to make the payment when they finally recover your password. This option and the free option are both based on the dictionary attack. The difference is that they have different quantities of passwords in the dictionary.
They also offer an advanced recovery method which is a prepaid option using Brute-Force with Mask attack and promising a 100% success rate if you provide true clues of the passwords for them to create a mask.
In terms of security, LostMyPass uses a HTTPS protocol and encrypted storage to protect your files. They also allow you to send them the hash value of your file for password recovery, so you don’t have to upload the entire file to their server.
Using LostMyPass to recover a Zip/7z password is easy. You can simply go to the landing page, pass the human verification test, upload the file, and you’re done. Here are the URLs you may need:
- For Zip files: https://www.lostmypass.com/file-types/zip/
- For 7z files: https://www.lostmypass.com/file-types/7z/
2. ASPOSE Zip/7z Password Unlocker Online (Free)
ASPOSE is another Zip/7z password solution that works on web browsers. While the portal claims to perform smooth recovery, many users complain that it isn’t as effective as it propagates about itself. You can say ASPOSE is comparatively less powerful because it fails to recover even a weak 7z password and takes several hours to recover the one for Zip files if it could ever complete the process.
The attack technology behind ASPOSE is based on brute force attack with a mask, but the recovery speed is very slow. It might vary in different areas. Nevertheless, since this tool is completely free, you can still try using the web app to see if it works in your region.
The steps to recover a Zip/7z password with ASPOSE are given below:
You can click any of the following links to go to its corresponding page, upload the file, set password parameters, and you’re good to go.
- URL for Zip Password Recovery: https://products.aspose.app/Zip/password-recovery/Zip
- URL for 7-Zip Password Recovery: https://products.aspose.app/Zip/password-recovery/7Zip
The procedure to crack a Zip password using ASPOSE is identical to the one used for 7z files.
3. PASSWORD Online-Recovery
This portal can accept different file formats directly from its Homepage. This means you don’t have to switch between pages when you wish to recover a Zip password or unlock an encrypted 7z file. It offers 6 password attack methods based on the 3 ones I mentioned at the beginning of this article
The only hassle while using PASSWORD Online-Recovery is that after you upload the encrypted file to the portal, it prompts you to enter a valid email address where it can send you the password it recovered. This is something some users would be comfortable with. You can still try to use the web app anyway because it won’t charge you until they recover your password.
Part 2: Three 7z/Zip Password Unlockers for PC
This section talks about the top three desktop programs to recover Zip/7z passwords.
As mentioned earlier, PC applications to unlock Zip/7z passwords are way safer compared to online solutions, as your files stay on your computer and remain well-protected against intruders and virus attacks. However, PC software usually works much slower than online tools which use cloud servers.
1. Passper for Zip
Passper for Zip is available for Mac and Windows computers. It can recover the passwords for both Zip and 7z files.
Merits and Features
- Attack Methods – Supports Dictionary, Combination, Masked, and Brute-Force attack methods for Zip/7z password recovery.
- Resume Support – A feature that allows you to pause the Zip/7z password recovery process and resume it from the point you left off.
- GPU Acceleration – Utilizes the power of GPU to expedite the recovery by 10x.
- Security – Claims to keep your data 100% secure.
- Success Rate – Claims to offer up to 95% success rate. However, I believe it is also based on the correct mask you created with the clues you know about the password.
2. PassFab for Zip
PassFab for Zip can decrypt files encrypted with Zip, 7-Zip, WinZip, and PKZip. However, at the time of this writing, the program recognizes only the *.Zip extension. Furthermore, PassFab for Zip is available only for Windows computers.
Some advantages and key features PassFab for Zip has are listed below:
Merits and Features
- Attack Types – PassFab for Zip uses Dictionary, Brute-Force with Mask (Masked), and Brute-Force attacks to recover Zip passwords.
- Technology – The program exploits search algorithms and advanced technology to crack Zip passwords.
- Reliability – PassFab for Zip has 10 years of experience in this area.
- Security – Claims to provide 100% data security.
3. iSumsoft Zip Password Refixer
iSumsoft Zip Password Refixer is available only for Windows PCs. Although the app supports files encrypted with almost all popular data archivers, the extension it recognizes remains restricted to *.Zip, at least at the time of this writing.
Some key features and benefits of using iSumsoft Zip Password Refixer include:
Merits and Features
- Attack Types – iSumsoft Zip Password Refixer supports four attack types namely, Normal (Brute-Force Attack), Mask (Masked Attack), Dictionary, and Smart (somewhat similar to the Masked Attack)).
- GPU Acceleration – While the landing page doesn’t mention this feature, the NVIDIA CUDA logo in the image of the interface indicates that the program may use GPU acceleration when required to expedite the Zip password recovery process.
- Resume Support – Allows you to pause and resume the recovery process.
- Success Rate – Claims to have a 100% success rate, but no tools can promise that.
- Security – Being a desktop application, it keeps your data secure from external attacks.
- Prioritization – While in process, iSumsoft Zip Password Refixer manipulates the CPU to prioritize recovery tasks over other less-important ones
Conclusion
While online portals can recover passwords for both Zip and 7z archives, their free plans only support weaker encryptions. For the strong ones, you must buy their paid plan, and even after that, they do not guarantee a 100% success rate. Your data privacy becomes another big concern when using a web solution. On the other hand, PC programs are way safer. However, they work slowly and most of them can only recover Zip passwords, and for other file formats, you may have to rely on different tools.
