Your spreadsheet has gone read-only, and Excel will not let you type.
You click a cell to type and nothing appears. The formula bar will not take a keystroke, the ribbon is greyed out, and when you go looking, Excel tells you the sheet is protected. Somebody set that in 2019 so a colleague could not overwrite a formula, and they left the company two years ago. It is a budget, a forecast or a rent roll, and it has to be finished today. We take the protection off your own workbook and send it back. There is no password to type in afterwards — the lock is simply gone.
See the price — £9 Flat price. You pay only if we can do the job.
No password afterwards. You are not handed a password to type in later. The protection is removed from the workbook itself, so every cell is editable the moment you open it — exactly as it was before someone protected the sheet.
Formulas and tabs untouched. Same tabs in the same order, same formulas, same number formats, same charts, same comments. We lift the protection; we do not rewrite your workbook.
Both locks, if you have both. Sheet protection, and the workbook password that stops you adding, renaming or reordering tabs. Two different switches, cleared on the same file, for the one price.
We check it before you pay. Your file comes to us first so we can check we can do the job. If we cannot, you are not charged and our copy is deleted.
You will recognise this if…
- You click a cell and Excel will not let you type — not even in a cell you added yourself.
- Protect Sheet is greyed out, or it asks for a password nobody in the building remembers.
- The workbook will not let you add, rename or reorder a tab, because the structure is protected too.
- A budget, forecast or rent roll arrived from an old accountant, a template, or whoever did the job before you — and it is due today.
The screen says one of these, and it is telling the truth — the sheet is protected:
- “Every cell is read-only.”
- “It says the sheet is protected.”
- “The ribbon will not let me type.”
This is a lock on the file, not lost data. Nothing has been damaged and nothing has been deleted — which is why the protection can be taken off.
Get the price
Drop the locked file below. We read its size on your own computer to show you the price — choosing a file sends nothing. When you press unlock we take a copy and check whether we can do the job. The answer appears here: if we can, the Pay button appears; if we cannot, you are told why and you pay only if we can. One flat price, whatever the file weighs.
How it works
Three steps. You see the price before you send anything, we check the copy you send, and you pay only if we can do the job.
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Drop the workbook
We read its size on your own computer and show you the price. Choosing a file and looking at the price sends nothing; pressing unlock is what sends us a copy.
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We check it, then you pay
Pressing unlock sends us a copy over an encrypted connection, and we check we can do the job. You pay by PayPal only if we can; if we cannot, you are not charged and our copy is deleted. Your original stays on your computer — we work on our own copy.
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We clear the protection
You get an email with a download link to the unlocked workbook. It opens straight into the normal editing view, every cell typeable, nothing to type in.
What we can do, and what we cannot
Being clear about the limit is more useful than a promise. Here is the honest split.
The protection comes off
This is the protection that stops you changing the cells. The workbook opens fine — it just will not let you edit it, and Protect Sheet either demands a password or is greyed out.
- Sheet protection removed — every cell editable again, including the ones that were flagged as locked.
- Workbook structure protection removed — add, rename, reorder and delete tabs again.
- Formulas, number formats, charts, conditional formatting and comments left exactly as they were.
- .xlsx and .xlsm workbooks, both handled the same way.
A password to open is a different job
If the workbook asks for a password before it will open at all, the whole file is locked, not just editing. That is encryption, not protection, and on most files it cannot be undone by anyone.
- We do not guess passwords. If the file will not open without one, that is not what this service is for.
- A damaged file is a repair job, not an unlock. We will say so rather than guess.
- Files you have no right to. We ask you to confirm ownership before you upload.
We check before you pay
We look at the file first. If it turns out to be password-to-open — the kind that cannot be done — we tell you, we do not take the job on, and anything you have paid is refunded.
So the worst case is a few minutes of your time, not your money.
One price
£9 for one workbook, whatever its size. No tiers, no extras, no upsell at the end. You see the price before you send anything, and you pay through PayPal only once we have checked the copy you sent and know we can do the job.
If we cannot clear the protection, you get your money back. That is the whole pricing policy.
Questions people actually ask
Will my locked cells still be locked afterwards?
No — they all become editable, and that is not a side effect, it is the point. A sheet password is the padlock. A cell's locked flag is only a label saying which door the padlock applies to. Excel will not lock a single cell unless the sheet itself is protected, so once the sheet protection is off, every cell takes typing again — including the ones that were locked. Your formulas, your tabs, your formatting and your numbers are untouched.
Do I need the password that was set on it?
No. We do not ask for it and you do not need to know it. If you do know it, you can take the protection off yourself in the Review tab — you would not need us at all.
Does this also fix the password that stops me adding or renaming sheets?
Yes. That is workbook structure protection, a separate switch from sheet protection, and it is included. We clear both on the same file for the same £9.
Will my formulas, tabs and formatting survive?
Yes. We only remove protection. Tabs, formulas, number formats, conditional formatting, charts, pivot caches and comments all stay as they were. Nothing is converted and nothing is exported.
What if the workbook asks for a password just to open it?
Then it is encrypted, which is a different job and, on most files, not one that can be done. We check which one you have before we take any money, tell you straight, and refund anything paid.
How long does it take?
The download link arrives by email, usually within the hour. You get a link, not an attachment, so a locked-down email system cannot block it.
Is this legal?
Yes — on your own file. You own the content and you have the right to open your own work. We ask you to confirm that before you upload, and we refuse anything that looks like someone else's file. The full explanation is on the why this is legal page.
What happens to my file once you have finished?
The working copy we unlock is deleted once the job is done. The file you download stays available for a limited period, then it is deleted too. Your original never left your computer.
Locked out of a different kind of file? See which files we unlock — same price, whichever it is.