Is there any way to unlock the zip folder after protecting it with a password? I have just forgotten my ZIP file password and how can I open encrypted zip file if I do not know the password?

–Asked by Allison in Yahoo Answer.

Try to Recall the ZIP Password

My suggestion to this problem is to try to recall what the forgotten zip password is. Keep clam and think of the combinations you use in a password. In some cases, you might forget a password temporarily and the password will go back to your mind when you try to remember it or just some time later. If this doesn’t work, getting an advanced zip password recovery tool seems to be the best choice.

Pick up an Advanced ZIP Password Recovery Tool

With so many password recovery tools available on market to choose from, it’s also difficult for you to take one. Password cracking time, ease of use and the price are some important factors you should consider in making the decision.

ZIP Passsword Unlocker is a stand-out one. It allows you to easily and quickly recover passwords from encrypted ZIP archives through Brute-force attack, Brute-attack with Mask attack and Dictionary attack.

Reasons to Use ZIP Password Unlocker

ZIP Password Unlocker is famous for the high recovery speed. By using advanced SSE technology and new and unique search algorithm, this tool enables you to enjoy a higher speed in recovering lost ZIP password than many other similar applications. And it supports password recovery for encrypted ZIP archives (*.zip) created using any tools, including the latest version of WinRAR.

What’s more, ZIP Password Unlocker features auto-save ability. You can resume your ZIP password recovery at any time after stop or interruption. And it includes the option to let you search your encrypted ZIP files when you don’t remember where you store the files.

Steps to Recover ZIP Password with Unlocker

• Step 1. Download and install ZIP Password Unlocker in any computer.
• Step 2. Click ZIP Password Recovery and import the zip archive that you want to recover password of.
• Step 3. Select one of the 3 password attacks (Brute-force, Brute-force with Mask and Dictionary attacks)and customize the settings if needed.
• Step 4. Click Start button to begin cracking the lost ZIP password.
• Step 5. Write down the password once the password is cracked.

As for how long it will take to recover ZIP password you have forgotten, it depends on the lost password strength and your computer performance in addition to the recovery speed of the ZIP file password recovery tool. If your password is short and simple, it might take you a few minutes to get back your lost zip password. But it also might take you days even months if the forgotten password is long and complicated.

Terrible with numbers and cannot remember your passwords? You can try to remember all your passwords with a password manager tool like KeePass.

What is GPU?

GPU (Graphics Processing Unit), popularized by NVIDIA in 1999, is a specialized electronic circuit designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the building of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display.

Firstly GPU only works on computer graphics processing, now is used in more fields, including video decoding, and computationally-intensive tasks, such as password decryption.

GPU uses a huge number of transistors to create a large number of processing units and high floating point arithmetic speed, thus shows great ability in data decryption.
In a personal computer, a GPU can be present on ATI and NVIDIA video card. That is to say, RAR GPU password recovery makes use of ATI and NVIDIA graphic card.

How fast GPU arithmetic speed is?

Highly parallel structure of modern GPUs makes them more effective than general-purpose CPUs when processing of large blocks of data. A modern GPU (e.g. 8800 GTX or later) can readily simultaneously interpret hundreds of thousands of very small programs.

CPU floating-point arithmetic speed is normally below 10 Gflops (floating-point operations per second), the speed of NVIDIA GeForce6 series is already about 40 Gflops, and GeForce7950GX2 even reaches 384 Gflops.

The GPU calculates 10 – 40 times faster than the conventional CPU used by password recovery programs.

How to remove WinRAR/RAR password with GPU acceleration?

Though GPU seems so powerful, it is easy to enjoy its high performance arithmetic speed with ATI or NVIDIA video card. More than 90% of new desktop and notebook computers have integrated GPU video card now, so normally you need nothing for RAR GPU password recovery.

RAR Password Unlocker automatically detects NVIDIA and ATI cards available for acceleration on a target computer, and uses them to carry out GPU RAR password recovery process without your settings. It can use multiple cards simultaneously.

Note: As every GPU requires “dedicated” CPU core to drive it, it is recommend that number of CPU cores to be not less than number of GPU cards.

RAR Password Unlocker supports all types of NVIDIA cards at present, and will add support for ATI graphic cards soon. With this GPU acceleration and SSE tech, you will easily remove WINRAR password.

Freeware 1 – cRARk

Recommended index: ★★

Features:

• Absolutel free
• Extremely optimized MMX & SSE code
• Optimization for latest x86 instructions: AVX, XOP, AES-NI for Intel Sandy Bridge and AMD Bulldozer processors
• GPU acceleration on NVIDIA and AMD/ATI using CUDA and OpenCL technology
• Multi-volume, self-extracting, encrypted header archives are supported
• Unique PCL language which is extremely efficient if user remembers any information about a forgotten password
• Powerful compatibility (DOS, Windows, Linux, Solaris, Mac OS versions are available)

Shortcomings

• CMD interface makes it difficult to operate.
• No multi-core CPU support.
• No pause/resume function.
• No chance to crack unknown password (longer than 6-7 symbols) if you have no additional info about it.
• Only WinRAR 2.x-3.x-4.x up to 4.0 is supported. If your RAR file is not encrypted in these versions, you cannot use cRARk to recover the lost RAR password.

Freeware 2 – Appnimi RAR Password Unlocker

Recommended index: ★★★

Feature

• free and portable
• GUI interface, and easy to use
• Support Brute Force Attack and Dictionary Attack
• Extract the files after password recovery
• Support Windows 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista and Win 7

Shortcomings:

• No multi-core CPU and GPU acceleration support.
• No pause/resume function.
• Much password information is required.

To get rar password successfully, you should give enough password information, such as, min length, max length, character, etc; otherwise, you will get the prompt that, “unable to unlock using the given parameters.” Therefore, if you forgot winrar password entirely, Appnimi RAR Password Unlocker is not suitable for you.

Shareware – RAR Password Unlocker

Recommended index: ★★★★

As the free tool is either inconvenient or not suitable, you may have to refer to shareware. Though commercial, it is worth to try RAR Password Unlocker demo version when you forgot RAR password, which combines the rapid password recovery speed of cRARk, and the GUI interface of Appnimi RAR Password Unlocker, and adds more features.

key Features:

• Support WinRAR 4.11 and its previous versions
• Quicken password recovery by multi-core CPU and GPU acceleration
• GPU acceleration on NVIDIA and AMD/ATI display card
• 3 efficient password attack options available
• Brute-force attack without any information required
• Support importing your own dictionary
• Save password recovery process automatically
• Shut down computer automatically after recovery

If you want to remove winrar password instantly, it is really recommended you to take this RAR Password Unlocker shareware, which is worthwhile for your needs.

Method One: Remove WinRAR Password for None-password Protection

Sometimes, a password-protect RAR files can be too much hassle and need to be removed. So, if you know the password, you can remove it and then create a new archive file without a password. Below is the step-by-step guide:

• Step 1: Open the WinRAR software utility and right click on the RAR file that has the password you want to remove. Select Extract Files from the list of options.
• 




• Step 2: Click the RAR file’s password in the window that appears and click OK.
• Step 3: Click OK button from the bottom of the next window that appears. This will extract the archive’s contents into a folder in the same directory that the RAR file is in.
• 




• Step 4: Right click on the new folder and select Add to Archive. This tells WinRAR that you want to take the files in the folder and place them in a new RAR file.
• Step 5: Click the OK option in the window that appears. The files in the folder then will be added to a RAR file. Now you have successfully removed WinRAR password. When WinRAR finishes creating the archive file, you can access it without password protection.

Method Two : Remove WinRAR Password for Solving Password Forgotten Issue

In fact, you can still have the opportunity to remove RAR password with a RAR password remover if you forgot the RAR password to access into . There are various RAR password removers and RAR Password Unlocker is proved to be a helpful tool for users to recover forgotten RAR password with 3 efficient options for RAR password recovery. Moreover, it can accelerate the password recovery speed significantly by using advanced search algorithm, multiple-core CPUs and NVIDIA-GPU acceleration. Following is a simple guide to remove RAR password.

• Step 1: Download and install RAR password Unlocker
  Download RAR Password Unlocker
• Step 2: Run the program, and then click Open to import your locked RAR file
• Step 3: Select attack type, and then click Start to remove RAR password

This RAR password remover software provides 3 different attack for you to remove RAR password: Brute-force Attack, Brute-force with Mask Attack and Dictionary Attack.

Option 1: Select Brute-force Attack

Brute Force Attack simply tries to guess the password by trying every single combination of characters until the password is found. So it is the most time-consuming method. If you have no idea on your forgotten RAR password, you can select this option and do as follows:

• 1. Click Recovery in the task bar, and then select Brute-force Attack.
• 2. Click Start button to remove RAR password.

Option 2: Select Brute-force with Mask Attack

This option is actually a variation from Brute-force Attack, which is more practical to remove the password. With Brute-force with Mask Attack, you can greatly reduce the recovery time by specifying the forgotten password length, characters, etc. If you already know some characters in the password, this attack can be your most suitable choice to do so.

• 1. Click Recovery in the task bar, and then select Brute-force with mask Attack.
• 2. Click Brute-force in the task bar, and set password length, character type and others if you remember.
• 3. Click Start button to remove RAR password.

Option 3: Select Dictionary Attack

Dictionary Attack allows you to remove RAR password according to default dictionary of the program. Besides, you can add your own dictionary to the program in order to shorten the RAR password recovery time.

• 1. Click Recovery in the task bar, and then select Dictionary Attack.
• 2. Click Dictionary in the task bar, and make settings for dictionary Attack.
• 3. Click Start button to remove RAR password.

When you forget RAR password, you can select one of the attack types to help you remove RAR password. The trial version of this RAR password remover can help you remove RAR password within 3 characters. So you can evaluate the RAR password remover before you make your decision.

Viewing detailed step-by-step guide: How To Recover WinRAR password with RAR Password Unlocker?

How to Open RAR Files Without a Password

For an unencrypted rar file, right click on the RAR file that you want to open, choose Extract files from context menu and definite a destination path, or choose Extract Here directly. Click OK to open rar files. To protect unauthorized person from accessing the archive’s contents, we usually create a RAR password with it. Then how to open an encrypted rar file?

How to Open RAR Files With Password-protected

Before discussing on how to open rar files with password, you should know that when we set password under advanced tab, there is an option on Encrypt file names.

Option 1: If you only check Show password, compress a file, and then double click to open it, you will see the names, size, modified date and other information of the files it contains as following picture.

Option 2: If you check Encrypt file names, you will not be able to view anything contained by the rar archive without a password.

Whether you choose Encrypt file names or not, as long as you can provide a correct password, you can open the rar file.

But at most time, it is unfortunate that users do not know the password. In that condition, a rar password recovery tool is required.

RAR Password Unlocker is tested to have fabulous performance when you cannot open RAR files with password. By using advanced search algorithm, multiple-core CPUs and NVIDIA-GPU acceleration, this RAR password recovery tool enables you enjoy faster recovery speed than other similar programs.

Key features:

Support file name encryption – Whether the archive name is encrypted or not, RAR Password Unlocker could work to recover its password.

Support multi-core CPUs and SSE – To accelerate password recovery speed vastly. The more CPU cores you have, the faster recovery speed you will enjoy.

NVIDIA-GPU support – Newly upgraded for recovery process acceleration. (NVIDIA CUDA-enabled device and CUDA 4.0 driver are required for GPU load.)

Auto-save – Automatically save the recovery process every 15 minutes by default, so that you can resume the RAR password recovery project after previous interruption or stop. What’s more, you can suspend the process at any time as you wish with the state being saved.

With simple settings by a few clicks, you would start to remove rar password easily.

Once you get the password, extract rar files as normal, input the password, you will be able to view its contents. That is how to open rar files if you do not know its password.

In our daily work, create password protected RAR archives to against WinRAR files from others viewing is in great request. Usually, there are two proven techniques to create password protected RAR archives.

Option one: You can open the password-protected RAR archive and view the individual files name, but you need knowing the password to extract the all files.

Option two: You can’t open the password-protected RAR archive and can’t even view the individual files name without the password.

Below we will show you how to create these two types of password-protected rar archives.

Step 1: Open Winrar and click on Wizard.

Step 2: On the Wizard Choose the operation window, select Create a new archive and then click Next.

Step 3: There will pop-up a window, just select the files to be added to the archive and click OK.

Step 4: Here please input an archive name to create and click Next button.

Step 5: Now you can click Set Password button.

Step 6: Create Password Protected RAR Archives with Two Options

For Option one: Creating Password Protected RAR Archives have two ways, please follow the steps below.

1. The set password will be in asterisks, so you cannot see it, hence you will need enter the password that you want to set twice for confirmation. Then press OK. After that you will return to the Wizard Archive option window and just click Finish. Your password protected rar archive will be created in your Desktop.

2. The set password can be seen. For this please click Show password and enter the password you want to set only once. Then press OK. After that you will return to the Wizard Archive option window and just click Finish. Your password protected RAR archive will be created in your Desktop.

For Option two: Creating Password Protected RAR Archives by click Encrypt file names after you input the password twice.

Step 7: Open the Password Protected RAR Archives with Two Options

For Option one: The Password Protected RAR Archives can be opened. It will show an asterisk just beside the files indicating that it will need the password to extract the files.

For Option two: The Password Protected RAR Archives cannot be opened. It will need the password even to open the archive.

However, if you want to recover your lost or forgotten WinRAR password, you may refer to: how to recover WinRAR password.

Recover Password-Protected RAR File

Method One: Take a Chance

The WinRAR password sometimes is the URL from where the file was downloaded. Another possibility is the password could be within the filename. If these tips can’t get a help, recovering the RAR password with a third party software is highly recommended. Well, just take a look at the decrypt process below.

Method Two: RAR Password Recovery Tool – RAR Password Unlocker

RAR Password Unlocker is professional RAR and WinRAR password recovery software, which runs in a high speed to recover or remove WinRAR/RAR password by using multiple-core CPUs. There are three attack types of RAR Password Unlocker for you to recover RAR password: Brute-force Attack, Brute-force with Mask Attack and Dictionary Attack.

1. Brute-force Attack – Try all possible combinations

Recommended: ★

Using Brute-force Attack of RAR Password Recovery can help you try all possible combinations to remove RAR password if you remember nothing about the password. Moreover, there is no doubt that it’s really hard to crack RAR password if the RAR password is very long or complex and the process could take ages.

2. Brute-force with Mask Attack – If some password symbols are known

Recommended: ★★★

If you remember some symbols or length of the RAR password, Brute-force with Mask Attack of RAR Password Recovery is better for you to save the recovery time by restricting the search area. View mor

3. Dictionary Attack

Recommended: ★★

Dictionary Attack allows you to recover RAR password according to default dictionary of the progra., Besides, you can add your own dictionary to the program in order to shorten the RAR password recovery time.

Want to learn the detaile steps? View how to recover RAR or WinRAR Password with RAR Password Unlocker?

Some scenarios always happen that you created some files a long time ago and used WinRAR/RAR to compress them into one with a password, but unfortunately you forgot the open password and the files aren’t accessible anymore, which may sometimes ruins your life.

Then how to solve these problems? How to remove WinRAR password without damaging the data inside? Is there any efficient WINRAR password remover or cracker? Of course you can try different password combinations, from your family, birth dates, pet names and all that but most of the time, you won’t succeed. Due to the structure of the RAR file, encryption in RAR is quite strong, so the password cannot be found instantly as it takes a lot of resources.

Compared with other RAR password removers, here offers 3 kinds of such applications which own advanced techniques to crack WinRAR/RAR password, both time-saving and high efficiency for password recovery.

1. cRARk – Absolutely free RAR Password Cracker

cRARk is one of the fastest and free RAR password recovery software, using extremely optimized MMX & SSE code. Compared with other RAR password recovery tool, this program can be customised to a far greater extent to allow partial passwords, wordlists, complementing wordlists with characters and more. What’s more, with its unique PCL language, it is extremely efficient if user remembers any information about the forgotten WINRAR/RAR password.

Learn more abour cRARk here!

2. Advanced Archive Password Recovery

This Advanced Archive Password Recovery can recover or crack both encrypted RAR and ZIP archives or files created with all versions of popular archivers. On one hand, it is a multi-function tool which supports all versions of ZIP/PKZip/WinZip, RAR/WinRAR, as well as ARJ/WinARJ and so on. On the other hand, by utilizing idle CPU cycles, this powerful remover supports background operation and works in a high speed to crack WinRAR/RAR password.

Learn more about Advanced Archive Password Recovery here!

3. RAR Password Unlocker

This RAR Password Unlocker, an unique software designed especially to gain maximal recovery rate, is a small and easy-to-use program with user-friendly interface, which helps you to crack your own RAR passwords without effort. In addition, this RAR password cracker offers a higher recovery speed than other similar applications by using the advanced search algorithm and multiple-core CPUs (The multiple-core CPU efficiency can reach 94.45%), which can be much time-saving. Further more, 3 types password attacks are available as: Brute-force Attack, Brute-force with Mask Attack, Dictionary Attack.

Learn more about RAR Password Unlocker here!

If you still have no idea on how to remove or crack WinRAR/RAR password, here provides you the step-by-step user guide from How to Recover RAR Password with RAR Password Unlocker?

Case 1: The Encrypted RAR File is Downloaded or Received from Internet or Others

For the RAR or WinRAR archives downloaded from internet, usually we can find the password in its readmetext or the download page. If you cannot find any information about that, you’d better have the psychological expectation that RAR password recovery will not be completed. Since you know nothing about the password, RAR Password Unlocker offers you Brute-force Attack which will try all possible passwords, from simple combination of numbers to complicated set of all characters on the keyboard, which may waste hours, days or months to crack RAR password.

Of course, if the RAR file is sent by others you can contact, asking them for the password will be the easiest way.

Case 2: The RAR File is Password Protected by Yourself

If your rar document is password protected by yourself, the probability to recover RAR/WinRAR password successfully will be greatly improved, as you may have a bit memory about the password.

Option 1: If you are the person who has a preference when setting a password, list all the characters you would like to contain in the password, such as your name, nickname, favorite star, birthday, and boyfriend or girlfriend name, etc. After that, you can take Dictionary Attack produced by RAR Password Unlocker, to remove the forgotten password with ease, which defines to remove RAR password by trying the password combinations in the built-in dictionary or self-created dictionary. Frankly speaking, this way has the highest successful rate.

Option 2: If you can still remember some information on the forgotten password, such as the prefix characters, the suffix characters, the length of password including letters, numbers, special characters, Brute-force with Mask Attack can be the most suitable choice to solve your RAR password recovery troubles as soon as possible. The more options you set, the quicker you will finish rar password recovery.

RAR Password Unlocker can recover RAR passwords or unlocks encrypted RAR archives created with WinRAR 4.01 and its previous versions.

Features

• Improves password recovery speed by using the advanced search algorithm and multiple-core CPUs.
• SSE is also taking in use for speeding up RAR password recovery.
• Dictionary and Brute-force Attacks with user-defined masks
• Save and resume recovery process at any time
• Easy to use with user-friendly interface

With this easy-to-use RAR password recovery tool, you can remove RAR password easily on your own without any data lose.

1. ZIP Password Unlocker

Price: $19.95

Supported ZIP archive: ZIP archives created by WinRAR 4.1 and previous versions
ZIP Password Unlocker is an excellent password recovery tool that is capable of recovering forgotten ZIP passwords using Brute-force with Mask, Brute-force and Dictionary attacks. This program supports ZIP archives created by WinRAR 4.1 and previous versions and allows you to enjoy a faster recovery speed than most similar tools with advanced and unique search algorithm as well as multi-core CPU and GPU technologies.

Highlights:

• Support ZIP archives created by WinRAR 4.11 and its previous versions.
• Recover password at high speed with advanced and unique search algorithm.
• Recover faster with Multi-core CPU and NVIDIA-GPU technologies.
• Support Brute-force with Mask, Brute-force and Dictionary attacks.
• Auto-save the recovery state and can resume recovery after interruption.
• Extremely easy GUI interfaces for easy operation within a few clicks.

2. Zip Password Recovery Tool

Price: $19.95

Supported ZIP archive: Zip-archives created using WinZip, PKZip, WinRAR or any other ZIP-compatible software

Zip Password Recovery Tool (Zip Password Cracker) is an easy and effective utility. It can help you recover lost or forgotten passwords for encrypted ZIP archives created y WinZip, PKZip or any other ZIP-compatible software through Brute-force attack and Dictionary based attack.

Highlights:

• Support Zip-archives created using WinZip, PKZip, WinRAR or any other ZIP-compatible software.
• Support Self-extracting Zip-archives (SFX).
• Support Zip archives encrypted by Standard Zip 2.0 encryption, 128-, 196- and 256-bit AES encryption.
• Support Brute-force attack and Dictionary based attack.
• Convenient user interface

3. Appnimi ZIP Password Unlocker

Price: Free

Appnimi ZIP Password Unlocker is a free ZIP password recovery tool that lets you search for passwords of protected ZIP files. This program guarantees the most complicated passwords recovery. It supports Brute-Force and Dictionary attacks for recovering your lost ZIP password and can extract the file after recovery of password.

Highlights:

• Completely free ZIP password cracker.
• Recovers user password required to open the file.
• Support Brute-Force and Dictionary attack.
• The exe in the installation directory is portable.
• Extract the files after recovery of password.
• Easy to use.

4. ZIP Password Cracker Pro

Price: Free

The ZIP Password Cracker Pro is a freeware program designed to help you generate passwords and apply these to password protected ZIP files. It supports the restart feature where in it stores the information in case there is a power failure and your computer shuts down. This software is very useful when you have backed up data to a ZIP file or forgotten the password.

Get it Now