Unfortunately, there’s no magic software that can instantly unlock encrypted files. Most people are surprised to learn that recovering a password to a protected document is a slow and resource-heavy process — but it is. Here's how password recovery works in our cloud-based service, explained in simple terms.
Suppose you’ve lost the password to a protected file and now want to recover it.
First, don’t waste time searching for programs that promise to easily hack encrypted files — such tools simply don’t exist. Modern software like Microsoft Office uses encryption algorithms that are mathematically proven to be secure.
Password recovery involves systematically testing a huge number of possible combinations. To give you an idea: there are more than 60 quintillion possible 10-character passwords using just English letters, numbers, and symbols. Add other alphabets or characters and the number becomes even more staggering. Even supercomputers can’t brute-force such a volume in a reasonable timeframe, since each attempt involves complex calculations. The stronger the encryption, the longer the recovery takes.
Thankfully, most people choose passwords that are easy to remember — which also makes them easier to recover. Think pet names, common words like “shadow,” combinations like “letmein,” or numbers like “654321.” These patterns significantly reduce the search space.
We maintain a database of over 20 billion commonly used passwords to maximize the efficiency of our password recovery process. While success isn’t guaranteed, we recover the password in more than half of all cases — a solid result.
We always start with a free attempt using a list of the 3 million most popular passwords. It’s quick and reasonably effective. The chances of recovering your password are lower than with our full database, but this quick attempt runs almost instantly and still offers a solid possibility of success.
If the quick search through the most popular passwords doesn’t succeed, we proceed with a full database search, which may take up to 24 hours.
If you remember something about the password’s structure — such as its length or characters used — you can define a mask. For example, if the password starts with “999” and the rest are lowercase letters, the number of possibilities drops dramatically. We can process such a task in just minutes.
Mask-based brute-force is a fixed-cost service, and the final workload and price depend on the complexity of your request. Use the custom request page to tell us everything you know about the password. We’ll estimate the total combinations and quote the cost.
Please note that mask-based recovery requires prepayment and success is only guaranteed if your description is accurate. If the actual password differs from the structure you provide, we won’t be able to recover it — and the payment is non-refundable.
Not really. You can try home software, but there are limitations:
That’s a brief overview of how password recovery works. If you have questions, check our FAQ section or contact us. We're happy to help!
Copyright © 2017-2025 LostMyPass.com
