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Use File > Info to quickly unprotect multiple worksheets [Quick tips]

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Ever had a workbook with multiple protected worksheets? May be you are enterprise architect at Death Star or chief strategist at Mordor and got all the plans in a tidy little but protected workbook. Of course, you hate having to unprotect many of the worksheets every time you have a new evil plan for world domination. Don’t you worry, you can use this handy little trick to unprotect en masse.

  • Just open the workbook
  • Go to File > Info
  • Right on the top, you can see all protected worksheets and a link to unprotect them.
  • Click to unprotect the ones you want to.
  • Done.

Here is a quick demo of the process.

unprotect-multiple-sheets-in-one-go

Happy world domination.

Few more quick tips:

Be warned though. You will question your loyalties after finding the awesome powers of Excel.

 

 

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9 Responses to “Use File > Info to quickly unprotect multiple worksheets [Quick tips]”

  1. John MacDougall says:

    If you have a lot of plans for world domination and don't want to click tons you could always set up a macro with this bit of code:

    For Each Worksheet In ActiveWorkbook.Worksheets
    Worksheet.Unprotect Password:=yourpassword
    Next

    Of course this option is totally unsecure and easy for droids to steal since the password is stored in the visual basic editor.

  2. Deepak says:

    Is there is any way to unprotect any files without knowing password

    • Hui... says:

      @Deepak

      This has been asked and answered several times here already
      Try using the Search Box at the Top Right of this page

      Alternatively there are several programs that you can purchase that can do this as well

    • Vineet says:

      Use the following macro to unprotect sheet:

      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

  3. Edmund Chew says:

    I am using Excel 2013 and my colleague from another Department is using an older version. But we both have to make updates to one Excel file where we each have our own Sheets (both sheets have different passwords)

    Whenever I password-protect my sheet, he is unable to unprotect his sheet.
    Why does my protect action over-ride his own sheet's password ?

    This issue never arose before (when we were both using the same Excel version)

  4. Tony Walton says:

    doesn't work for excel 2007?

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