How to Recover Forgotten Excel 2010/2013/2016 Document Password

For data security, we are used to using a password to protect some important Excel files from unauthorized reading and modifying. However, after a long time, we may have forgotten the password and can't open and view the Excel file. So, what do you do if you have forgotten or lost the password to unprotect an excel workbook? In this post, we will introduce to you three effective ways of how to recover forgotten Excel 2010/2013/2016 document password easily and safely.

Before Reading

There are several types of encryption plans in Excel 2010/2013/2016 and it is necessary to distinguish and make them clear before talking about how to recover workbook password.

Open password: It is the protection of Excel file. Without it, you can't open or view the Excel document and this post is talking about how to recover this kind of password.

Workbook structure password: It protects the structure of the document and you can't add, delete or move any worksheet. But it doesn't have any effect on modifying the contents of worksheet.

Worksheet password: A workbook consists of one or several worksheets and this password is workable in one worksheet to protect this worksheet from being edited or moved.

Read-only password: It means you can only open and view files but not copy or edit files without password.

Way 1: Recover forgotten Excel file password by third-party tool

The most reliable and effective way to retrieve the lost or forgotten Excel password is third-party tool. Office Password Recovery is such a tool designed to retrieve your forgotten or lost Office password including Excel .xls and .xlsx files. Here is the guide on how to use Office Password Recovery to how to retrieve Excel workbook password.

Step 1: Import an Excel document that encrypted with forgotten password.

Download and install this tool on your computer. Then launch it and click Open option.

Next, find out the location of a password protected Excel file and click it and click Open button.

Step 2: Choose the password recovery mode and complete some settings.

Normal mode. It is a commonly-used password recovery type. If you choose this recovery mode, you can complete some options to shorten the time of recovery. For example, if you vaguely remember that the password starts with abc and has no special symbols, you can type abc in input box next to Start from and uncheck the box of All special symbol.

If you still remember the length of password, then you can click Length tab the type the range of length.

Mask mode. If you partially remember the password, you can choose this recovery mode, which can save much more time. You can type the certain part with specific code and the uncertain part with question mark as the picture shown below.

Dictionary mode. This mode will take advantage of the built-in dictionary to retrieve the password. There are two sources you can get a dictionary file. One is the default dictionary file provided by the software, the other is a notepad file created by yourself, which may include commonly-used passwords, your ever-used passwords and some special characters like phone number, birthday, etc.

Choose Dictionary mode and click Select Dictionary button to import a dictionary file.

Smart mode. If you know little about the document password, the Smart recovery type will try all possible characters combinations including all printable characters. The algorithm of Smart Recovery can help you rapidly find the lost password of Excel file.

Step 3: Start recovery

After the configuration of recovery mode, click on Start button to launch the process of password recovery. Wait for a while and the password of Excel file will be shown on the screen.

Tips: Besides, Office Password Recovery is also an efficient tool that enables you to recover the password of other Office files such as Word, PowerPoint and Access. You can download Office Password Recovery for free. Its free trial can only recover Office document password containing no more than 3 characters. If you want to recover complicated passwords, just purchase the full version.

Download: Office Password Recovery

Way 2: Recover forgotten Excel password online

If you forgot the password and don't have access to open and view the Excel 2016/2013/2010 document, you can also try some online Excel password unlocker tools to recover the forgotten password. LossMyPass MS Excel Password Recovery is one of the top online Excel password unlocker tools that enables you to retrieve or remove the password of Excel 2016/2013/2010/2007/2003 workbook. You just need to drag and drop a password protected Excel document to this website. Wait for a minute and then the password will be retrieved and displayed on the screen.

Tips: It worth mentioning that you need to upload your personal Excel file to their server, which may have the potential for data leakage.

Way 3: Recover forgotten Excel password by VBA

If you want to safely unprotect an Excel file for free when you forgot the password, you can try this method. But it is only available when the password is three characters or less and simple. Here are detailed steps.

Step 1: Open an Excel file without password at will and then press Alt + F11 shortcut to access the Microsoft Visual Basic for Application feature.

Step 2: Click Insert option and select Module. On the popup window, copy and paste the following code.

Sub crack()
Dim i As Long
Dim FileName As String
i = 0
FileName = Application.GetOpenFilename("Excel file（*.xls & *.xlsx,
*.xls;*.xlsx", , "VBA crack")
FileName = Right(FileName, Len(FileName) - InStrRev(FileName, "\"))
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
line2: On Error GoTo line1
Workbooks.Open FileName, , True, , i
MsgBox "Password is " & i
Exit Sub
line1: i = i + 1
Resume line2
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

Step 3: Hit F5 to run the code and then find the password protected Excel file in File Explorer. Wait for a while and the password protected Excel file will open in only-read mode and the forgotten password will be shown on the screen. That's all.