#VBA Two methods of unlocking a locked excel sheet:VBA macro for Excel that should unprotect a password protected sheet,Opening the spreadsheet as XML and removing the specific piece

Alternative_Excel_Unlock

Step 1. Make a copy of the spreadsheet in an empty directory.  Rename the extension to .zip
Step 2. Extract the zip file.
Step 3. In the extracted contents, goto the folder \xl\worksheets\
Step 4. There should be one xml file per sheet? I editing "sheet1.xml" with NotePad++.  From nearly the very end of the file, remove the tag that starts with:
                                    <sheetProtection  
                                    
        My entire tag was as follows:
        <sheetProtection algorithmName="SHA-512" hashValue="ALciNBSIqRcjDiFbCuyWoGk4iOcC/ZRKnEjwEVi1skb6G5JbHhp+QVZ9+rlPVbGILOS7lYiCvJmR4Q7IuSphXA==" saltValue="8OVKXrG0VacLOLVztUpEYw==" spinCount="100000" sheet="1" objects="1" scenarios="1" selectLockedCells="1"/>  
        
Step 5.  Save the file.  Open the ZIP file in 7zip, find the same file, drag and drop, save, exit, rename the file back to (xlsx) and open

UnlockExcelProtectedSheet.vbs

Sub PasswordBreaker()

'Breaks worksheet password protection.

Dim i As Integer, j As Integer, k As Integer
Dim l As Integer, m As Integer, n As Integer
Dim i1 As Integer, i2 As Integer, i3 As Integer
Dim i4 As Integer, i5 As Integer, i6 As Integer
On Error Resume Next
For i = 65 To 66: For j = 65 To 66: For k = 65 To 66
For l = 65 To 66: For m = 65 To 66: For i1 = 65 To 66
For i2 = 65 To 66: For i3 = 65 To 66: For i4 = 65 To 66
For i5 = 65 To 66: For i6 = 65 To 66: For n = 32 To 126
ActiveSheet.Unprotect Chr(i) & Chr(j) & Chr(k) & _
Chr(l) & Chr(m) & Chr(i1) & Chr(i2) & Chr(i3) & _
Chr(i4) & Chr(i5) & Chr(i6) & Chr(n)
If ActiveSheet.ProtectContents = False Then
MsgBox "One usable password is " & Chr(i) & Chr(j) & _
Chr(k) & Chr(l) & Chr(m) & Chr(i1) & Chr(i2) & _
Chr(i3) & Chr(i4) & Chr(i5) & Chr(i6) & Chr(n)
Exit Sub
End If
Next: Next: Next: Next: Next: Next
Next: Next: Next: Next: Next: Next
End Sub

didn't work with office 2013 up