00:00If you have locked your workbook with a password and you have forgotten your password, this is
00:03how you unlock it. But before we do that, let me show you how you can lock your workbook with
00:08a
00:08password. You're going to go to review on your ribbon and under protect, there's this thing
00:13called protect workbook. I've got another video showing you how you can unlock your worksheet if
00:18you have protect with a password. If you need the link to the video, please leave the request or DM
00:22me tip 364. Now let's protect our workbook here. Over here, we'll come up with a pop-up. In the
00:29password, you're going to type, say, ABC, any random password to do, and click OK. You'll be
00:33asked to enter your password again. Over here, you're going to type the same password, which is
00:37going to be ABC for me, and click OK. Now I'm going to press Control-S to save my workbook
00:43and
00:43basically close it. Now if I were to reopen my workbook one more time, you can see that to add
00:50a brand new sheet, I'm not able to do it right now because the workbook is protected. And at the
00:55same time, if you right-click any of this sheet, you can see I can't insert, delete, or even
00:59rename my worksheet here. So now if you're in this pickle, let me show you how you can actually
01:04unlock it without your password. To start off with, you're going to close your workbook.
01:09I'm going to save it. And you go to your Windows File Explorer, and then you're going to change
01:14the file name extension of your Excel spreadsheet from XLSX to ZIP, which is essentially a zip file.
01:23And Windows will prompt you saying that, hey, you're about to change the file name extension.
01:27Are you sure you want to do that? Over here, you're going to click on Yes, and the icon will
01:30change into a zip icon. Double-click on it, and then open a directory called XL. And then in there,
01:38you will see XML file called Workbook. You're going to copy this workbook file, drag it to a separate
01:44directory altogether because you can't make any edits on a zip file. After that, you're going to open
01:50any of your text editor. I'm going to simply use Windows Notepad here. And then in here, you're going to
01:58basically drag the XML file into this notepad here. On this notepad, you're going to type
02:06Control-F to find for a text called Workbook Protection, and hit Enter. If your workbook is protected,
02:14you should see something like this. What you're going to do is you're going to highlight this
02:18less than workbook protection all the way down to this lock structure equal to double quote,
02:24one, double quote, like this one here, like this. You're going to highlight all the way from there
02:29to there, and press Delete on the keyboard to get rid of that workbook protection element. And then
02:35after that, you're going to go to File, Save, and essentially close your notepad completely. Now,
02:41this is the file that you've been working and you have to make some changes. You're going to take
02:45this change file and drag it back to your zip file. And since that file is already existing in your
02:52zip
02:53file, they will say, hey, you want to copy and replace it? You're going to say, click on it, yes.
02:57And after that, navigate back to where your zip file was. Now, we're going to do a reverse of what
03:03we did just now. We're going to change the file name extension zip to xlsx, and hit Enter. And at
03:10the
03:10same time, now Windows will say you're about to change file name extension. Over here, you're
03:13going to say yes. And then the icon, the file icon will change to an excellent icon. Double click to
03:20open your workbook. And now you can see that you can add worksheet now. And at the same time, you
03:26can
03:26delete them. Or you can also rename your worksheet, which means your workbook is unlocked.
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