This is good news for those who need to unprotect an Excel spreadsheet without knowing the password, bad news for those who actually think protecting an Excel spreadsheet is secure enough (this has only been tested on Excel files created with Excel 2003 or older).
According to this website, the passwords you enter in Excel are not used directly in protection. They are actually hashed and there are only 194,560 possible hashed values. You can then use a macro to try out all these possible combinations and a modern home computer can crack the password in seconds.
Use the free add-in below from mcgimpsey.com to remove the password for a protected Excel spreadsheet. Simply open it and you will see an extra button called “Remove Passwords.” Open the file you wish to unprotect and click the button to unlock it.
remove_internal_excel_password.xls
Here’s the macro code:
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