An XLSX password remover is a third-party tool that forcefully unprotects a password-protected Microsoft Excel file. Before we introduce the password removers, we would like to let you know that you can protect MS Excel files at three different levels that are explained below.
First Protection Type – Password to Open
In this type of protection, Excel prompts you to enter the password before opening a file. You can set this level of security:
- At the time of saving the file.
- By going to File > Info > Protect Workbook > Encrypt with Password.
- By clicking Save As and saving a duplicate copy if you already saved it earlier.
In the background, MS Excel encrypts the file and all its data and decrypts only after you enter the correct password.
Second Protection Type – Password for Structural Modification
When you use this type of protection, you can still modify the contents of the file, merge cells, and do many other things in the worksheet. However, you cannot add or delete any worksheet. If you want to add a new worksheet, Excel prompts you to enter the password. You can enable this type of protection:
- While saving the file.
- By going to File > Info > Protect Workbook > Protect Workbook Structure.
- By clicking Save As and specifying a password before saving a duplicate copy of the file.
Third Protection Type – Password for Content Modification
This protection type prevents you from making any changes to the content in the worksheet unless you unprotect it. You can turn on this security level:
- From the menu bar > Review > Protect Worksheet.
- By going to File > Info > Protect Workbook > Protect Current Sheet.
You can enable protection for a worksheet as granularly as you want, i.e., from locking all the cells to preventing users from inserting or deleting columns, formatting cells, rows, or columns, etc.
Now that you know how to protect your Excel file with passwords, what if you forget them? Is your data entirely lost? Or does the file become completely useless?
The answer depends on what protection type you enable on the file and which password(s) you don’t remember anymore.
For instance, if you encrypted the Excel file, you can only open it by recovering the forgotten password using brute force, dictionary, mask, or other types of attacks. The key point to keep in mind here is that you cannot remove this type of password and can only recover it. Once recovered, you can go to File > Info > Protect Workbook > Encrypt with Password, and remove the password from there.
On the other hand, if you forget the structural modification or worksheet protection password, they can be removed using any XLSX password remover.
With all the information given above, here you will learn about 2 efficient XLSX password removers.
Top 2 XLSX Password Removers
Because forgetting Excel passwords sometimes is a disaster, you can try different XLSX password removers to guarantee that you unprotect the locked Excel files as soon as possible. Their features are similar, but some of their features and the algorithm to recover the password are different.
First XLSX Password Remover – iToolab PassWiper
This XLSX password remover is available for Windows 7/8/10/11. iToolab PassWiper uses Dictionary Attack, Combination Attack, or Brute-Force Attack to recover the password of an encrypted Excel file. The application even allows you to use your custom password dictionary that you may have created or obtained from a reliable source.
For Dictionary Attack, the program allows you to download an additional dictionary from its server or upload your custom one to expedite the recovery process.
Brute-Force Attack is trying all the candidate passwords combined by all characters including numbers, lowercase and uppercase letters, and symbols. It takes the longest time if your password is complicated.
Combination Attack is a based on Brute-Force Attack, but it takes less time because it requires some details (for example, the prefix of the password) about the password which will obviously reduce the time of password recovery. This feature is helpful when you have a faint idea about the type of password you defined to protect the file.
In addition, iToolab PassWiper can remove passwords you specified to prevent structural modifications or change the contents of a worksheet.
At the time of this writing, the latest version of PassWiper XLSX password remover supports Microsoft Excel 2003 to 2021 versions, and also the variant that Office 365 has.
Second XLSX Password Remover – PassFab for Excel
PassFab for Excel is compatible with both Windows and Mac platforms, and at the time of this writing, the app supports Microsoft Excel 97 through 2019 versions.
While recovering encrypted workbook passwords, PassFab for Excel uses Dictionary Attack, Brute Force with Mask Attack, or Brute Force Attack.
The meaning of Dictionary Attack and Brute Force Attack is the same as the first XLSX password remover, but they may have different dictionary files and the algorithm of Brute Force Attack might be different.
About Brute Force with Mask Attack, you can customize the settings to narrow down the scope of the attack. It is also based on Brute Force Attack and saves much of your time.
Regarding passwords for structural and content modification, you can also use PassFab to remove the XLSX password.
Can You Remove XLSX Password Online for Free?
A general tendency of online culture that you must understand is that anything free is either not secure or not quite effective to be used regularly for productivity. The same goes for the online XLSX password remover tools.
Although many web apps claim they are free and effective, they have some glitches that prevent you from recovering the workbook password or removing modification protections from it.
For instance:
At the time of this writing, these web apps allow you to upload an XLSX file protected for data and structural modifications. Before you begin the unlocking process, the online remover tools prompt you to enter the workbook password, so they don’t work if you forgot the password. If you remember the password, you can use Excel to remove it with the guide we offered at the beginning of this article.
In a nutshell, neither of the above tools uses any attack type to recover workbook passwords, and they can’t even remove content and structural modification passwords from an Excel file.
With that said, finding a free and effective online XLSX password remover tool is a tedious task that may take lots of time, and even after that, you cannot be sure that you will succeed. Nevertheless, you may still conduct an extensive online search to see if you get lucky to locate something that is free and works well.
Conclusion
Sometimes your Excel data is sensitive, and you may want to protect the workbook or the worksheet. If that is the case, it is suggested that you save the password somewhere you can check at any time. Otherwise, an effective and robust XLSX password remover tool will be needed.
