The following sections provide downloadable tools and links to services to help you recover your document with a lost password for the popular applications shown on the side menu.

Passwords for some applications are more difficult to recover or bypass than for others.  There are three possibilities; the password can always be easily found or bypassed with recovery software (e.g. Access passwords), there may be some cases that can be easily exploited to find the password, but in other cases it is secure (e.g. WinZip), or it may be secure, requiring a "brute force" attack (e.g. Word or Excel file open password).

Sometimes it will not be possible to recover the password, but it may be possible to unlock the file without it using "key recovery".

As an alternative to purchasing software for a one-off requirement, you can usually get a specialist company to provide access to your password protected file. This is a good option where the encryption is secure and requires a lot of computer power to break such as Word or Excel files.  We've included some services that can help you.

Other sites of interest

Password-find.com provides a fast, low cost data recovery service for password protected Word or Excel documents, a free downloadable guide plus independent reviews and trial downloads of Word, Excel and VBA recovery software.

Check out ZipUnlock for specialised information and software downloads for recovery of WinZip and Zip software.

SpyCop spyware removal and detection software

Ultimate Zip Cracker: Word / Excel / WinZip / Zip / ARJ password recovery software

MailWasher spam and email management software

Cimaware software for recovery of corrupted Microsoft Office files