How to Remove Password from a ZIP file when you don’t know the password

In this article, wikiHow will show you how to access a ZIP folder without knowing the password. The only way you can do that is to download a password cracking program. However, this process can take up to several days.

Table of Contents

Preparing to remove the password

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Understand the risks of doing this. You will have to download a program that can guess the password of the ZIP folder. Before you do, don’t forget that doing so may expose your computer to a virus. Review your safe browsing practices and install anti-virus software before proceeding.

Most of the free trial versions only crack short passwords. If a program not listed below claims to offer free unlimited password cracking, don’t download it: it could be malware.

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Expect it to take a long time. Most password cracking programs need several hours to guess the simplest passwords. So be realistic and don’t expect to see results without waiting a few days.

It’s impossible to guess a password by routine in just a few minutes. Any service that claims to do that is highly likely to be malware. ^{[1] X Research Source}

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Turn off background programs. You will need the maximum processing speed of your computer. Therefore, close all heavy programs like Photoshop, video games, movie and music players, and so on.

Even if you put all the maximum processing speed of your computer into cracking the ZIP folder password, the process can still take up to several days.

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Place the ZIP folder on the desktop. The screen is the most accessible location on the computer. Therefore, please drag the above folder to the screen before proceeding to crack the password.

You can also copy and paste a ZIP folder by selecting the folder, pressing Ctrl + C (Windows) or ⌘ Command + C (Mac), going to the desktop, and pressing Ctrl + V or ⌘ Command + V .
With the ZIP folder located on a mobile device, such as a smartphone or tablet, transfer it to your computer before proceeding to crack the password.

Use John the Ripper

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Understand how this method works. John the Ripper is a free command-based program that you can use to crack passwords. Unfortunately, even though it’s free, installing and using this software is quite a hassle.

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Download John the Ripper. Go to http://www.openwall.com/john/ in a desktop browser and click the John the Ripper 1.8.0-jumbo-1 (Windows binaries, ZIP, 34 MB) link under “community enhanced version” (community-enhanced version) near the bottom of the page.

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Extract John the Ripper. Double-click the downloaded ZIP folder, click the Extract tab then Extract all and wait for the window to appear.

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Install John the Ripper. Although you can’t install John the Ripper like other normal programs, you can install it on your desktop by moving the John the Ripper folder there and renaming it “john”:

In the unzipped window that just opened, click on the “john180j1w” folder.
Press Ctrl + CORE
Open the desktop and then press Ctrl + V .
Right click on the pasted folder and select Rename
Type john and press ↵ Enter .

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Place the ZIP folder in John the Ripper’s “run” folder. Copy the folder by clicking on it and pressing Ctrl + C , then open the “john” folder and then the “run” folder, click in an empty space and press Ctrl + V .

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Open Command Prompt. This is the command line program on your computer:

Press Start

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Type command prompt
Press

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Command Prompt at the top of the Start window.

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Change to John the Ripper’s “run” folder. Type cd desktop/john/run and press ↵ Enter .

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Enter the command “run”. Type zip2john.exe name.zip > name.hash (remember to replace “name” with the name of your ZIP folder) and press ↵ Enter .

For example, for a ZIP folder named “xin_chao”, here you would enter zip2john.exe xin_chao.zip > xin_chao.hash .

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Determine the hash of the ZIP folder. Type name.hash (where “name” is the name of your hash file) and press ↵ Enter . At this point, you are ready to start cracking the password.

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Start cracking passwords. Type john.exe --pot=name.pot --wordlist=john/run/password.lst name.hash and press ↵ Enter . John the Ripper will start comparing your ZIP folder password with its password database. ^{[2] X Research Source}

You will have to replace “name” in both “name.pot” and “name.hash” with the name of your ZIP folder.
The file “password.lst” contains a list of passwords and their permutations.

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Requires display of crackable passwords. Once the program determines the password, the words “Session complete” will appear at the bottom of the Command Prompt window. You can now type type name.pot (replace “name” with the name of your ZIP folder) and press ↵ Enter to see that password.

Use paid software

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Understand how this method works. Usually, any professional password cracking software will allow you to crack the password of a file with a certain maximum number of characters. However, in order to crack most files, you will have to purchase the software.

The positive side of using these programs is that they are often very user-friendly.

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Know what you’re looking for. The password cracker of your choice will usually offer a free trial plan with the ability to use password-guessing attack techniques.

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Download and install some professional password cracking program. You’ll have to buy the software anyway, here are some recommended options: ^{[3] X Research Sources}

Advanced Archive Password Recovery — https://www.elcomsoft.com/archpr.html
Zip Password Recovery Professional — http://download.cnet.com/ZIP-Password-Recovery-Professional/3000-18501_4-75031119.html
ZipKey — https://www.passware.com/kit-standard/freedemo/

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Open your password cracking program. Once the installation is complete, click or double-click the program icon to open it.

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Select your password protected ZIP folder. You’ll usually do this by clicking the Browse , Open , or Add options in the program, selecting the ZIP folder to crack the password, and clicking Open or Choose . .

Some password cracking programs allow long-pressing and dragging the ZIP folder into the program window.

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Choose an option to guess a certain password. In most cases, you should choose Brute force . However, you can select Dictionary or similar to check the list of words that match the word you entered.

The Dictionary method works best when you know part of a password or phrase you’ve used (but can’t remember the capitalization or characters).

Advice

A program can use several different methods. For best results, try each method. These include:
- Dictionary attack: check word list. If it works, this option is much faster than the others. However, the possibility of failure is quite large because not all passwords belong to this group.
- Brute force attack: guess every possible combination. Only available for short passwords and/or fast processors.
- Brute force with mask: In case you remember certain details about the password, this method will allow you to tell that information to the program before starting the enforcement. For example, it could be information that the password contains only letters, not numbers.
To crack the password, you may have to let the computer run on its own for a few days.

Warning

Depending on your computer’s processing speed, a brute force attack can take a long time. Even the computer is likely to be damaged because the processor has to work too hard with a long password cracking time.
Copying and downloading copyrighted software without payment or without the owner’s consent is illegal in most countries.
While it’s legal to use a password cracker, don’t access files you don’t have access to.

Steps

Preparing to remove the password

Use John the Ripper

Use paid software

Advice

Warning

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