Save the Workbook as a ZIP and Edit XML Files
This method works if your Excel workbook is an .xlsx file and the workbook structure is protected via XML. You can unzip the file and manually edit the XML files to remove protection. This does not require any password but works only for structure protection.
Steps:
➤ Make a copy of your protected .xlsx file.
➤ Change the file extension from .xlsx to .zip.
➤ Extract the contents of the ZIP file to a folder.
➤ Open the extracted folder and navigate to the xl folder.
➤ Find and open the file named workbook.xml in a text editor like Notepad++.
➤ Search for the tag <workbookProtection … /> or similar.
➤ Delete the entire <workbookProtection … /> tag.
➤ Save the file and close the text editor.
➤ Compress the folder contents back into a ZIP archive.
➤ Change the file extension from .zip back to .xlsx.
➤ Open the new file in Excel; the workbook should no longer be protected.
Note:
This method is risky. It might not work for everyone, and you can corrupt your Excel file. That is exactly why you should try this method after creating a copy of your workbook, or you might lose your data.
