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How to Recover forgotten Password of MS Word Document

By Jennifer | Last Updated

Setting a password for your Microsoft Word document can prevent others from accessing and editing your information. However, if you forget the password to open a word document, you will not be able to open the protected file. This is where many people get into trouble because they don't know how to recover forgotten Word document passwords. In this article, I will share with you the most effective ways to recover forgotten password of Microsoft Word document.

how to recover forgotten password of microsoft word document

Way 1: Recover forgotten password with VBA code

One thing to note before you use this method is that if the forgotten password contains only three characters, the problem can be easily solved using VBA code. If the forgotten password is more than three characters, it may take some time to recover the lost password. And this method is not applicable when the lost password is too complicated.

Step 1: Open any Word document and press the Alt+F11 button to enter Microsoft VBA.

Step 2: Click on the Insert option and select Module. In the pop-up window, copy and paste the following code. Then press the F5 button to run it.

Sub test()
Dim i As Long
i = 0
Dim FileName As String
Application.FileDialog(msoFileDialogOpen).Show
FileName = Application.FileDialog(msoFileDialogOpen).SelectedItems(1)
ScreenUpdating = False
Line2: On Error GoTo Line1
Documents.Open FileName, , True, , i & ""
MsgBox "Password: " & i
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
Exit Sub
Line1: i = i + 1
Resume Line2
ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

enter the code

Step 3: When the File Open dialog box pops up, select the word document whose password needs to be recovered. Then click on Open.

click open

Step 4: Wait for a few minutes and a pop-up window will appear on the screen with the recovered password. You can use this password to open the protected word document.

display password

Way 2: Download professional password recovery software

Office Password Genius is a professional password repair software. This Office password recovery software is specially designed for users to recover forgotten passwords of Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Access documents.

Step 1: Download and install Office Password Genius.

free download office password genius

Note: Free trial version only supports the recovery of Word password which contains no more than 3 characters. If your password is more than 3 digits, please purchase the full version for a better performance.

Step 2: Click on the Open option, find out where the password-protected word file is saved and open it. Select the recovery type. There are four types of recovery: Normal, Mask, Dictionary, Smart. If you don't know how to choose, you can refer to this guide: Normal/Mask/Dictionary Password Recovery Type Settings. Below I will guide you through a quick password recovery using Normal mode as an example. If you remember that the password is purely numeric, you can just check the option for All digits (0-9) under the Range tab. You can choose the options according to the actual situation.

open the encrypt file

Step 3: If you still remember the length of your password, you can click on the Length tab and enter the length range. This operation will speed up the recovery of the password.

set the password length

Step 4: Once the setup is done, click the Start button, wait a moment, a dialog box will pop up showing the password of the word file, now you can copy this password to open your word document.

appear the openning password

Way 3: Use online tool to recover Word password

LostMyPass website can recover document opening passwords for all versions of encrypted MS Office Word files (*.doc and *.docx). And it is free of charge, you just need to wait a minute to complete the password recovery.

Step 1: Drag and drop your password-protected Word document into this website.

drop file to upload

Step 2: Wait for a while and the password will be displayed on the screen.

display your password

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