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.
- change the file extension from xlsm to zip
- open the zip file with winzip or winrar
- go to xl folder
- find the vbaProject.bin file
- extract the file on desktop
- edit it with some Hex Editor (HxD editor is free)
- search for DPB string inside the file
- replace DPB with DPx and save
- copy the file back inside the archive
- change the file extension back to xlsm
- open the file and skip the warning messages
- go to vba project properties and protect the file with a new password
- save the file and reopen it
That’s all you have to do to recover the vba password. More like a break of passwords.