How to Recover Word Document Protected Password When You Forgot

"I have forgotten the protected password of Word document. How to open a password protected Word document if password is lost or forgotten? Is there any way to recover Word document protected password?"

If you protected your Word document with a password but then forgot the password, the Word document will be locked and you can't open or edit it. In this post, we will walk you through three useful ways of how to recover Word document protected password when you forgot.

Way 1: Recover forgotten Word password by VBA

It is a straightforward way to recover forgotten Word document protected password by VBA. Here are detailed steps.

Step 1: Open a Word 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 test()
Dim i As Long
i = 0
Dim FileName As String
Application.FileDialog(msoFileDialogOpen).Show
FileName = Application.FileDialog(msoFileDialogOpen).SelectedItems(1)
ScreenUpdating = False
Line2: On Error GoTo Line1
Documents.Open FileName, , True, , i & ""
MsgBox "Password: " & i
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
Exit Sub
Line1: i = i + 1
Resume Line2
ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

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

NOTES: This way is only available when the password is three characters or less and simple. Otherwise, the password cannot be removed. If you need to recover some complicated password, it is advisable to refer to Way 3.

Way 2: Recover forgotten Word password online

If you fail to open a password protected word document by VBA, you can also try to unlock the password protected Word file by some websites online. Take LossMyPass as an example. You just need to drag and drop a password protected Word document to this website. Wait for a minute and the password will be displayed on the screen.

NOTES: There are also lots of issues with choosing to use online tool to recover Word password. One of the issues worth considering is privacy and security. What's worse, you have to pay for strong password recovery and there is no refund even if it fails to decrypt. So, it is not so ideal to recover forgotten Word password online.

Way 3: Recover forgotten password via third-party utility

If you want to unprotect Word document safely and conveniently, a trustworthy and powerful third-party tool is the way out and Office Password Recovery is such a tool. It offers you several recovery modes to recover the password quickly and safely. Here is the guide on how to use Office Password Recovery to open a password protected word file if you forgot the password.

Step 1: Import a Word 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 word 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 to find the password smartly.

Step 3: Start recovering password

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