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How to Open Password-Protected ZIP File without Password

David Brown
David Brown

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Have you encountered such a situation where you were asked for passwords to extract a zip file downloaded from internet, or you forgot the passwords for your encrypted zip file? Looking for an effective way to open a password-protected zip file without knowing the password? Now you are in the right place.

We will work you through how to use iSumsoft ZIP Password Refixer to recover the unknown password of encrypted ZIP archive file. And we will show you how to use NSIS to remove ZIP password.

2 Methods to Open a Password-Protected Zip File without Password


Method 1: Recovering password via ZIP password recovery tool

iSumsoft ZIP Password Refixer is powerful ZIP password software that helps recover unknown password from encrypted ZIP archive file in the short possible time. Then you can open your password-protected ZIP file with the recovered password. Download and install ZIP Password Refixer. Launch the app once it's installed.

Step 1: Import a password protected zip file.

Click Open button to select the password-protected zip file and add it into this program.

Open password protected ZIP file

Step 2: Select a proper password attack type and define settings.

Something helps you to choose an appropriate attack type:

Brute-force attack type: It will try all possible combinations in a specified Range. The Range can be specified from the tab below. This is quite helpful when you have a basic idea of what characters your password consists of.

For example, if you know that your password consists of all small Latin letters and numeric digits, then you can select just those 2 and deselect the other characters. This will significantly improve the decryption time as the software only has to scan limited characters.

Select Password Recovery Type

The next tab is Length. This lets you set the minimum and maximum character length of your password. So, if you know that your password ranges from somewhere between 4-6 characters, then you can set the length accordingly. If you don't set a range, then the software will first start searching for a password within 1-3 characters first. So, the length feature can again save you quite some time.

Define the length of password

Learn more about how to recover password with Mask and Dictionary attack.

Step 3: Once all these parameters are set, Click on Start.

This will start the decryption process. The recovery time will depend majorly on how large the password is and also on how powerful your Graphics Card is. Having a good GPU will hugely decrease the recovery time. So, make sure to set your Range and Length parameters properly before starting the scan as this will help you a lot. Once the recovery is finished, you will get a popup screen where you can view your password.

Open zip file with recoveredpassword

Step 4: Open password-protected zip file with the password.

Then you can easily open your password-protected zip file with the password. To do:

1. Double-click the ZIP files you want to unzip.

2. Enter the password for your ZIP files when the password window appears. And click on OK to go on.

3. Choose Extract All Files from the folder sidebar. Choose a location for your files and click Next, then click Finish.

Enter password to open zip file

Tips: In order that you can open the password-protected zip file without entering password, you are recommended to first extract the zip and then compress to a new zip by not setting password. So the zip file is not protected and you can directly open it without password.

Method 2: Remove password from an encrypted file with NSIS

NSIS is magic software that can convert a password-protected ZIP file into an exe file. Install the .exe file so that it can turn into your ZIP file and you can open it without password.

Step 1: Download NSIS and install it on your computer. Then run it.

Step 2: Click the Installer based on ZIP file.

Click the Installer based on ZIP file

Step 3: Click the Open button. Navigate to the path to your password-protected ZIP file and add it to NSIS software.

Click Open

Step 4: Click the Browse button and select one path to locate the EXE file it will generate. And then click the Generate button.

Select Output path

Step 5: When the generation is complete, close the dialog and you can see an EXE file just like the one below.

EXE file

Step 6: Double-click the EXE file to install it. When the installation is complete, it extracts your password-protected ZIP file. And you can open it without password.