Home › Unlock an Excel sheet without the password, free and online
A Protect Sheet password is not encryption. Excel stores only a hash of it as a flag inside the worksheet XML, and that flag is what greys out editing. Because the actual cell data is never scrambled, you can re‑enable editing by removing the flag — you never have to recover or guess the original password.
Most online unlock services upload your file to their servers, process it there, and hand it back. That means a copy of your spreadsheet — possibly sensitive — sits on someone else's machine. This tool is different: it runs entirely in your browser tab. The moment you drop a file in, JavaScript on the page opens the ZIP, strips the protection tag, and rebuilds the file locally. Nothing is sent over the network, nothing is stored, and reloading the page leaves no trace.
.xlsx or .xlsm file onto the drop zone, or click to browse.If Excel prompts for a password before it will open the file at all, that is real AES encryption of the whole workbook, not a sheet edit lock. No free online trick removes that — you genuinely need the correct password. Files like that are detected and refused rather than broken.
The manual route works, but our free in‑browser tool does the same thing in one drop — nothing is uploaded, everything runs on your device.
Unlock your file now →Yes. There is no paywall, sign‑up, or file‑size upsell. The page runs the unlock in your browser at no cost.
No. All processing happens locally in your browser tab. The file never leaves your computer, and nothing is stored or logged.
It does not need to. Sheet protection is an edit lock, so the tool removes the lock flag rather than recovering the password.
Forgot your sheet‑protection password? · Remove sheet protection manually with the ZIP method · Remove workbook‑structure protection