Sometimes I need to recover or break the VBA password for an excel file because I build some code inside excel files and protect the file with a vba password just to keep my colleagues from ruining the code behind the excel reports. There are times when I don’t pay attention to the password thinking it is a one off file and I don’t need it in the future.

How to break or recover VBA password

I will tell you how I do it in a few simple steps.

1. change the file extension from xlsm to zip
2. open the zip file with winzip or winrar
3. go to xl folder
4. find the vbaProject.bin file
5. extract the file on desktop
6. edit it with some Hex Editor (HxD editor is free)
7. search for DPB string inside the file
8. replace DPB with DPx and save
9. copy the file back inside the archive
10. change the file extension back to xlsm
11. open the file and skip the warning messages
12. go to vba project properties and protect the file with a new password
13. save the file and reopen it

That’s all you have to do to recover the vba password. More like a break of passwords.