Unlock Old Office Files

Microsoft Office 97, 2000, XP (2002), and 2003 all used 40-bit RC4 encryption to protect documents. At the time, this was considered adequate - but by today's standards, it's trivially weak.

Unlike standard password recovery (which tries to guess your password), we don't need to know anything about your password at all. We recover the encryption key directly, bypassing the password entirely. This works regardless of how long, complex, or random your password was.

Old password-protected Office files surface in all kinds of situations. If you've found files from the early 2000s that you can't open, you're not alone.

The quickest way: just upload your file. We detect the encryption type automatically and tell you within seconds whether it qualifies for guaranteed recovery.

But if you want to check yourself first, look at the file extension:

Tip: On Windows, if you don't see file extensions, open File Explorer, click "View" in the toolbar, and check "File name extensions." On Mac, right-click the file and select "Get Info" to see the full filename.

If you've searched for "unlock old Word document" or "open old Excel file password," you've probably found dozens of basic utilities claiming to remove Office passwords. Here's why they don't work:

If your old Office file asks for a password before it will even open, the content is encrypted. ЧњЧђ amount of "password removal" will help - you need actual encryption key recovery.