Can I crack a password protected Microsoft Word file?

Dave, I just got another read-only password-protected Word file from my boss and I'm hoping there's a way to sidestep the password because he gets really mad every time I ask him to unlock the file and/or send me an unprotected version. I dunno if this is legal, though. Can you even answer this for me?

Dave's Answer:

Okay, everyone who thinks this is illegal, click here and you can go shopping instead. :-)

Good, we've gotten rid of those sticklers and can talk about the relatively simple technique that you can use to sidestep the password protection on a Word file. Is it illegal? I don't think so, since it's a document that your boss sent you.

Here's how you crack the password protected Microsoft Word file:

First, open the document and do a "Save As..." specifying Rich Text Format (RTF). It'll end up being called something.rtf.

Now open the RTF file by double-clicking on it. It should look identical to the original Word file.

Final step: save the RTF file with a new name as a Microsoft Word format document.

That's all there is to it. You've sidestepped the read-only lock on the file your boss sent you and are good to go.

In terms of actually breaking the password on a file that has it set as the "open file" password, that's beyond the scope of what I'll write about here. But I will say that there are some Google searches that can probably help you track down plenty of tips on doing just that.

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Reader Comments To Date: 283

Laura said, on June 3, 2005 12:09 AM:

I can't seem to get this to work. I have a word document that is a form and the form is protected with a password. I need to modify the form to add a graphic of a signature, and in order to do that I must unprotect it. And it keeps asking me for the password, even though I have done the above (saved as RTF, openened the RTF and saved as a new word document) for a password. Is there another trick I should know? Thanks!!!

Monty said, on June 21, 2005 4:34 PM:

How can I crack password of my MS word file ?

ME said, on August 5, 2005 5:26 PM:

"First, open the document..."

Isn't this the point?? You can't open the document because you don't have the password. Duh!

Dave Taylor said, on August 5, 2005 5:30 PM:

If you can't open the file at all, then you need to use a different tool to break the password, and I'm not going to go down the road of cracker tools like that. I'll just suggest you spend some time on Google looking for "download word file password crack" or similar.

Nordberg said, on October 4, 2005 9:14 PM:

For those having problems, my resaved document was also still protected.

Selecting "Unprotect Document" from the menu will unprotect the resaved document without prompting for the password.

Matt Brown said, on November 14, 2005 5:48 PM:

You are the man! I just used your advice on unprotecting a protected Word doc and it worked great (I couldn't remember the password).

Thanks again, wonder man! Matt Brown

Jess Lailey said, on November 21, 2005 1:22 PM:

Nice bit of lateral thinking there... saved me digging through tons of costly password cracking software. Thanks a lot!

Mintlatte said, on December 28, 2005 1:12 PM:

oooh....I could just kiss you. This one just saved me a ton of hassle with a freaky boss who thinks EVERYTHING should be password protected, and that we should just retype everything from scratch so as not to mess up her stuff.

Ahhhh... the sweet smell of common sense....I am SO bookmarking this page.

Stardust said, on January 9, 2006 2:22 PM:

Hello,

I am trying to open a word document that I have password protected, I was able to open it in read only the other day and I have no idea how I was able to do that, now I can't get the document open at all and I really need to print out the contents of the journal I have been saving since December 14, 2004. Is there a way for me to open the file so I can print it out? I am not able to safe the file in another form, however I can email it to myself, but still can't save it in another form when I do this either.

Thanks so much.

|{oopa said, on January 9, 2006 4:02 PM:

Stardust:

Rename the file and put .rtf extension. Try opening it with Notpad or somthing. If this doesn't work open the .rtf file with OpenOffice (its a free alternative to MS Office.) If it still won't open at all the file is probably corrupted. Hope you have a backup!!!

Rache said, on January 12, 2006 3:07 PM:

Good Morning,

I was doing searches yesterday to solve the password problem for what seemed like forever. Thank you so much for this page and your extremely helpful advice. I will bookmark and visit this site again soon - keep up your great work!

Kevin said, on January 19, 2006 11:01 PM:

Mr Dave.. can you help me to open the Word Document with Password protect. I can't even open the file. I just set a password to protect this file, and after a month I forgot it.
Password to get in Word document file, High protect... hichici

digitaljhelms said, on March 3, 2006 11:01 AM:

Superb! It's always the simple, overlooked things; I don't think this method could get any simpler.

And for the record this method was used to unprotect some Microsoft press releases available for download. Oh the irony...

napster said, on March 13, 2006 7:32 PM:

it worked like a charm. Thanks Dave....

brian said, on March 16, 2006 1:20 PM:

Thanks! Your tip worked perfectly. Now all the admins are amazed by my mad tech skills. (i.e. Google) Saved me the trouble of having to crack the password

NaThemba said, on March 27, 2006 4:44 PM:

Filling out a job application for depended upon unlocking the form. If I get the position, I get a 'get outta debt free' card and you definitely get your chai!

Lance said, on April 25, 2006 1:55 PM:

One could also download "Passware" an automated password revealer for PDF, DOC, XLS, and many more at thier favorite free online store like KaZaA or Bearshare. lol

Amy said, on May 1, 2006 11:29 AM:

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! You saved my hide with this bit of info!

Kelly said, on June 22, 2006 9:35 PM:

Hmmm, not having any luck. Does this work in Office 2003? My document is remaining protected regardless of the format I resave to. It's important that I maintain my formatting if possible, I've tried RTF and MHT with no luck. I've also tried saving these formats as an earlier version (in Word 2003). Any thoughts?

eva said, on June 23, 2006 7:35 AM:

Nordberg you are the BEST with your idea you can unprotect the whole document

alchemist said, on June 26, 2006 6:27 PM:

Also does not work for me with Office 2003 :( Doc stays protected no matter what. I'm trying to unlock a form since the formatting doesn't fit my data.

Demiurg said, on July 6, 2006 5:06 AM:

hi alchemist and all,

always good to work with two computers in parallel...
with word 2003 I had also no chance to unprotect a protected word doc (I saved it rtf, but the document was still protected in this form).
then I tried word2000, and WOW! in the rtf format the document was protected (u can see it easily in the "forms" toolbar) but could be unprotected without the password - then I stored it as a .doc again and everything was fine

thx for the idea, but MS has fixed it in the newest office version... :-(

KR
Thomas

PS: always keep your old software... :)

Zach said, on July 25, 2006 3:26 PM:

Hi:
Was able to save password protected (lost!) Word doc. to text doc. per above, but when I open it in Notepad, it is all gibberish. Any way to correct that? I tried to in turn save the doc. back to a Word doc., but it still calls for the password. Thanks.

Andy said, on August 9, 2006 2:41 PM:

This will remove the password from a protected Doc

From - http://itmanager.blogs.com/notes/2005/04/how_to_crack_un.html

If you are using office XP or 2003, you can change the view to HTML-Code using Microsoft Script-Editor by pressing the [Alt]+[Shift]+[F11] key combination.

Search for "Password" and you will find somethimg like this:
ReadOnly
19E8E61E

To remove the protection:
-Just remowe those two lines, and after saving the document , the protection is gone.

anupam said, on August 19, 2006 5:56 AM:

hey dave,
My office people have protected the job search web sites with a fire wall, Is there any way that i can bypass the fire wall?

Plash said, on August 29, 2006 8:15 AM:

cool very cool it works...gr8 work man...

Mike said, on October 21, 2006 6:21 AM:

I figured out there should be one more simple step in the process, (between step 2 and 3). Step 2.5: when you have the .rtf document and just before you save it back as a .doc, just make sure you operate a change (typing one letter should do it), then save. ;)

Hulttio said, on January 9, 2007 8:31 AM:

Thank you. You saved my day(week)as I've been trying to solve this petty problem for a few days now. This hint has been really helpful.

Dhanu Saud said, on January 19, 2007 9:58 PM:

Funny guy....nothing can be done with password protected doc files try some password recovery programs available for free downloads at misc sites. It's Nepali guy!!!!!

Manny said, on February 13, 2007 10:45 AM:

Dave you are the man.
just a note.
on the step of opening the .rtf
you should make sure it opens with wordpad.
in my case it opent with word.
so i had to specificly open it with wordpad.
Thank you very much again.

Anna said, on February 20, 2007 1:42 PM:

Worked like a charm. You rock.

Todd said, on February 22, 2007 2:51 PM:

Excellent tip by Andy. In my case, after opening the script editor I deleted the following line...

[HashedPassword]

(where [HashedPassword] will depend on the original password)

Then I hit save and closed the script editor. After that, choosing Unprotect Document from the Tools menu worked just fine.

Todd said, on February 22, 2007 2:55 PM:

Excellent tip by Andy. In my case, after opening the script editor I deleted the following line...

{w:UnprotectPassword}[HashedPassword]{/w:UnprotectPassword}

(where [HashedPassword] will depend on the original password)
(also, this post stripped out the tags that look like html, so replace the curly braces above with greater than / less than signs (like html tags))

Then I hit save and closed the script editor. After that, choosing Unprotect Document from the Tools menu worked just fine.

alex said, on February 24, 2007 7:14 PM:

Great tip Andy, works perfectly and simple to do. thanks.

Luca said, on February 26, 2007 3:31 AM:

Sorry I'm italian and I will sure make few mistakes of language.. but: My problem is a word document protected.. I can't remeber the pass!!..
I alredy read this:
>
But I don't find the "menu"... which menu?
Please Help Me.. :(

Banzai said, on February 27, 2007 9:37 AM:

The Menu is "Tools" on your top menu bar...
- Tools / Unprotect Document =)

Tim said, on March 6, 2007 6:00 PM:

Here's how I got around the read-only password in Word 2002:
Open the file
Go 'Save As'
In the Save dialog box select Tools->Security Options
Clear the "Password To Modify" text box and press OK

Malcolm said, on March 13, 2007 2:25 AM:

very nice trick..
thanks alot..
got a praise(NOT RAISE! lol) from my boss.. haha..

jeff said, on March 13, 2007 11:27 AM:

Trying to unlock password in a protected cell on a MAC

Samreen said, on March 14, 2007 4:43 AM:

Sir,
I forget my word file of university that was not opened without password. how can i open it without actual password. Please help me for this solution.I am very thankful you for this act of kindness.
Regard

R Ortiz said, on March 14, 2007 1:09 PM:

Can somebody tell me how Ican unlocked ms word officce 2007? This is an emergency

Alok said, on March 15, 2007 6:03 AM:

Hi Guys,

One question. When you dont know the password, how can you open the file and save it as RTF format ? I have been looking the responses all over the world, but when a guy doesn't have the password, how can you suggest it to OPEN FIRST ??? and thn save it in the RTF format....
Correct me, if my understanding is wrong.....

Thanks

sbp said, on March 15, 2007 7:04 AM:

I followed Andy's trick for office 2003 however could not locate the fields mentioned but i deleted the complete line begninig with <password>=<password ID>.... and it worked.

Dened Max said, on March 17, 2007 6:39 AM:

Sir,

I forget my word file of CURRICULUM VITAE 1 that was not opened without password. how can i open it without actual password. Please help me for this solution.I am very thankful you for this act of kindness.

Regard

ALVIN RAY said, on April 3, 2007 6:52 AM:

i cannot open the MS word file, it needs a password to open it. i forgot the password! help! how can i crack the code? THANKS.

michael monday said, on April 9, 2007 7:25 AM:

have file father cannot open he is 87 a vry important file how can I get into it
he has tried everything email me back asap @ mcmonday3@aol.com

Sumya said, on April 17, 2007 6:05 AM:

Thanks dave. It was so magic. Thanks for all. It did work.

Jon said, on April 25, 2007 12:58 PM:

For those of you that are confused about this:

This hack is only good for Word files that have password protection on the read-only "status" of the file. This protection is used for files that the originator wants to keep unmolested. With a password protecting the file from changes, the originator can ensure his file won't be changed. HOWEVER, this hack has NOTHING TO DO WITH FILES THAT HAVE PASSWORDS TO OPEN THE FILE. Microsoft uses a very long 40bit encryption on these files. The only way to beat the password on a Word document that has been password protected for file opening is a vary good guess or a "brute force" program that will run through all of the possible combinations. Be aware that this will most likely take 1-3 days.

Good Luck!!

"PC" said, on April 25, 2007 4:33 PM:

Perfect!!! Two-thumbs up!

Bobby said, on April 26, 2007 1:16 PM:

Good tips. We're on Word 2002 SP3 so these didn't quite work for me. I did however go to the HTML version by using the [Alt]+[Shift]+[F11] key combination.

I couldn't find the fields listed but I did find:

(HTMLopen)DocumentProtection Forms (HTMLclose)DocumentProtection

(Had to write it that way because this blog didn't like the actual HTML tags in there)

I removed that line, causing it to complain with a dialog box while saving but it saved anyway. I then altered the form, protected the form with a password I created and then placed it back on the LAN for my users.

Hope that works for somebody else out there.

Gowtham said, on April 27, 2007 4:50 AM:

Perfect Man...Great work....You made my day! Thank you very much

Natasha said, on April 28, 2007 7:42 AM:

I have a word document that in my PND-muddled state of mind I password protected and cannot recall. I've searched Google, but all I come up with are downloadable programs that cost over $50 USD (Just don't have that kind of money to spare) or shareware that only work on passwords that are under 4 characters long.

How do I know which one is safe to download?
How do I pick one that won't be a waste of money that I can't afford to spend?
Does anyone know of a free option? Its just one document - only of value to me as its a diary I kept while I was struggling with new motherhood.

Hope someone can help shed some light,

Tash

Kelly said, on May 22, 2007 12:51 PM:

Great Advice.. I work with Office 2003 and was finally able to unprotect the document using the HTML editor... Amazing!!

Hiroshi said, on May 22, 2007 8:51 PM:

I have a litlle bit trouble:
-I set the password for the file.doc
-2 weeks after, I changed the password of file.doc
===> I can remember the old password which I set before, absolutetly I can't remember the new pass, how should I do?

Robin Berry said, on May 23, 2007 9:15 AM:

Dear Dave,

Thanks very much for listing this tip, it was very helpful. You have a great website - thanks for sharing your knowledge with us great guru.

Robin

Dan said, on May 25, 2007 8:03 AM:

Can I either turn off the 'save changes' confirmation box, or do a Save and Close at the same time in MS WORD? I know I want to save my changes and close the document, but don't want to do 2 clicks to have to get it done.

Roshini said, on June 6, 2007 12:10 AM:

Hi Dave,

I have a problem in opening my MS Word document which is password protected as i forgot the password.The OS which i am using is Windows XP. I am scared to use any of the tools in the google search just because it would be virus infected. It would be great if you can help me out in sorting out this problem.Expecting your reply at the earliest...

Thanks

Nick Pereira said, on June 13, 2007 11:10 AM:

Very helpful the [Alt]+[Shift]+[F11] key combination worked like a charm after deleting the entire line that contains the word "Password". Save me alot of time.. Cheers

Manoj said, on June 29, 2007 9:07 AM:

Hello,
I can't open my a important file. i forgot my file password. so please tell me how can i open it again with safty and how can i broke this file password.

Sdenka said, on July 23, 2007 7:29 PM:

Thank you dear Andy, your post at August 9, 2006 saved my life :), I needed to work with a very important document. Thanks a lot again, you deserve a huge kiss.

Your Peruvian friend, Sdenka :)

Dinesh said, on July 25, 2007 10:01 PM:

Sir, Pls Send me how to crack a word password without knowing them. actually I miss the my imported word file password and that how can i open then pls send me in my e-Mail ID = muskaandin@yahoo.co.in

hanking you in anticipation

Kaushal said, on August 3, 2007 12:39 AM:

Hellow,
Here i tried a lot to open the MS Word 2000 file which is password protected.I forgot the password which i have set for this document.Now how can i open this file please guide me.
Thank you.

marc said, on August 26, 2007 8:20 PM:

First, open the document and do a "Save As..." specifying Rich Text Format (RTF). It'll end up being called something.rtf.

how can u open the document when the file is itself password protected????

armedos said, on August 31, 2007 5:31 PM:

Mr Dave.. can you help me to open the Word Document with Password protect. I can't even open the file. I just set a password to protect this file, and after 5 month I forgot it.
can you help me to open it.

jess said, on September 7, 2007 4:11 AM:

i have a password on my word document and i forgot the password. Can i crack into it without any downloads from the internet?

alex said, on September 7, 2007 4:19 AM:

Hi :)
how do i get into a word document without knowing the password? I need ur help! :(
hope u can help me

Tim said, on September 7, 2007 3:10 PM:

this works for formatting locked files, not for files where you need a password just to open it. open the locked file that you've "forgotten" the password for and save it as an .rtf. open the .rtf in wordpad, then click on save as. change the file extension to .doc and save. it's now unlocked. alternatively: while u have the document open in wordpad press ctrl+a and then ctrl+c. open word and press ctrl+v, this will copy and paste everything from the .rtf. ur welcome.

Priya said, on September 7, 2007 9:54 PM:

This amazing ..and so simple Thanks

abhishek said, on September 9, 2007 10:18 AM:

well i have encrypted a word document in microsoft office 2007 i.e i have given a passwor & forgotten it
i tried all your tips but i am unable to open it
could u please help me?????????

Joelthrow said, on September 11, 2007 3:33 PM:

Thanks Dave! Anyone still having trouble try saving the doc in HTML format. Open it > cut and paste the contents to a new word doc. Should do the trick.

maris said, on September 17, 2007 8:22 AM:

Yes, It is nice to read that you can read your password protected documents.
In Your`s comments are sad that: "Open a password protected document, change the name (Save As)...bla bla bla. But probblem is there that I can`t open a pasword protected documen and change the name (give rtf type, I can only rename by clicking right mouse), if I could open the password protected document, i dont understand why I need samsing to change in order to open this document agan...
Thank You!

shanim said, on September 18, 2007 12:25 AM:

I did my best to crack the password in MS office, But in vein...

anyone can help me...

Agata said, on September 25, 2007 8:40 PM:

THERE IS A H U G E DIFFERENCE BETWEN OPENING PASSWORD PROTECTED WORD DOC, AND REMOVING PASSWORD WHICH WAS PLACED O N L Y FOR PREVENT EDITING FILE (sorry for my english I'm polish but I couldn't read it any more)and I'm a GIRL(woman, FEMALE)!!! ;P

Anand said, on October 1, 2007 9:45 PM:

Worked like a charm my man - except for one litle adjustment in my case. From RTF I had to save it as a MS Works Word processor Document. And then back to RTF and again to word document. Awesome tip.

Dịch Vụ Quảng Bá Web said, on October 9, 2007 9:49 PM:

Convert read-only .doc files to .pdf and then save as .doc again is another way to get rid of read-only password protect.

I like the way that Zach, PC shared to romove password because it can keep original format of documents.

ian said, on October 11, 2007 8:36 AM:

I had word 2003 files that were p/w protected and would not open and found a handy little free program
http://www.shareup.com/Ms_Word_Excel_Cracker-download-49181.html

Worked like a charm for me. Good luck!!!

shailesh said, on October 26, 2007 4:43 AM:

pls tell me,

i forgot my word file password, then what to do

test said, on October 28, 2007 1:53 AM:

This is working very fine. Just need to do one more step. After you save as rtf file to MS-Word file. Open the Word File and click on Tools - Unprotect, now it will not ask you the password and you can edit.

Enjoy !!!

Rich said, on November 19, 2007 10:52 PM:

Open file with notepad/wordpad then save as *.rtf.
Open rtf file and save as *.docx

This removed all password protection.

user said, on November 21, 2007 3:44 PM:

All i did was save as rtf, rename to file.txt (from rtf) then open it in notepad etc.
Search for password... and replaced the adjacent the hash (eg 9d734ndf74 or somethign like that) with: (nothing). The rename to rtf, resave as as word doc and click unprotect. The password is blank, so just hit enter.
done!

narry said, on December 4, 2007 8:06 PM:

Hi,
i can not open my word doc. I tried all the options,but still in vain. its kinda imp.
have to open this doc file,
please suggest
Thanks
Narry

Exec said, on December 9, 2007 8:55 PM:

I had open password protected my resume and now i cannot remember it. it is about more than eight character long. can you guide me on how i can open this word document without downloading any software or is there any free software to download that can help. please this is urgent.

thanks

Noor said, on January 9, 2008 6:23 AM:

Andy's trick works well with MS word to unprotect an MS Word 2003 document.

Thanks Andy

Susan said, on January 11, 2008 2:32 PM:

The simple solutions... saving to .rtf and back again, and simply choosing Tools --> Unprotect Document... did not work for me.

Opening the HTML code and deleting the two lines that referenced the ReadOnly status DID work, though those lines looked a little differen, but they were easy to find with "Find"! (That's the tip posted by Andy on Aug 9 2006) YES! Thanks!

David said, on January 17, 2008 9:47 PM:

Does anybody know how to unlock VISTA files for editing?

Carly said, on January 20, 2008 3:37 AM:

Does anyone know how to crack the password for a word document on Vista, I can not remember what I set it as and I really need to open the document and cant do anything.
Thank you

shy said, on January 23, 2008 2:16 AM:

sir,

I am not able to word file after ilost my password. i have tried the option given to save the filein HTML formAT AND THAN TO SEARCH "password". i did all thatbut i am not getting any word related to "password" in that file. pls suggest what to do asit is an urgent documents.

Regards

Mohammed said, on January 25, 2008 2:00 AM:

Wow.......... can't tell u how surprised i am to find it so simply done. I was working on several programs to solve this problem and !!!!!! 2 my surprise i find ur site. Thanx frnd its been great help and I guess how many of u out there find it the best solution. Take care and i will be a fan and also post what i know on ur site.

Steve said, on January 27, 2008 8:01 PM:

Open a new, blank Word document and Hit Insert -> File, and insert your password-protected file. Done

Z1ldj1an said, on January 30, 2008 3:55 AM:

You really found the cure, alright! ;)
Thnx

��?ng Nhòm said, on February 23, 2008 1:25 AM:

Well done!

It work with my word 2003 file.

Thanks Dave and regards!

eckecko said, on March 4, 2008 1:16 PM:

Awesome. It worked with the bit about changing the file extension to rtf, and then opening it with wordpad. Thank you.

Chris Buchtmann said, on March 5, 2008 7:00 PM:

I've just spent 4 hrs on google trying to find out how to overcome the MSWord Forms password under and found lots of so called solutions that will cost me money for a program. I just tried your solution of saving the .doc as a .rtf and then saving that .rtf back to a .doc. IT WORKED, the password under TOOLS/PASSWORD was reset to unprotected and I now have full access to the document. Tks very much for such a simple and elegant solution, Chris.

ranjan said, on March 7, 2008 2:05 AM:

i have tried saving the file to .rtf and then .doc.but i couldnt recover the document to read.vil u help me with some other tricks to break password.am using xp.

Andy H said, on April 2, 2008 2:12 AM:

Absolutely brilliant - thank you!

One of our employees password protected a file to make it read-only and has since moved on, and we needed to edit said document - your advice worked perfectly. Here's to lateral thinking!

Once I opened the newly saved document I had to (like others here) select "Unprotect Document" but once that was done, it worked like a charm!

rod t said, on April 7, 2008 6:26 AM:

thank uvery much

Miroslav said, on April 13, 2008 11:04 AM:

I have password to open and password to modify. I can`t opet document at all. How to do anything while i can not open document. At start shows to write mesage and that is all.
I using Microsoft Office 2003
Help please!!!

Helpee said, on April 15, 2008 6:44 AM:

Send me any office file which had read only security on. I will try to help you lot.

Dont forgot its illegal to do such a job. So i would need some sort of explanation why you need to do this so.

Good Luck

SK said, on April 20, 2008 4:52 PM:

If you can save the doc as .rtf, you can then edit it with notepad and remove the '\readonlyrecommended {\*\writereservation }' and '{\*\password something}' elements... worked for me.

For the technically inclined, looky here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922681

Harish said, on April 23, 2008 5:05 AM:

How do i crack, unprotect or remove protection of password from excel file. can you help me in this.

regards,
harish

I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you, Dave, for all your helpful information by buying you a cup of coffee!

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Can I crack a password protected Microsoft Word file?

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