Recovering Passwords for Multiple Files

Passware Kit supports batch file processing, recovering passwords for multiple files, one-by-one, in an automated way. This option is supported in Passware Kit Business and Passware Kit Forensic.

How to Start

Select multiple files for decryption using the Recover File Password option at the Start Page.

You can also initiate password recovery for multiple files from the results of the Search for Protected Files option. Select the files (use Ctrl-click to select dedicated files or Shift-click to select multiple items at once) that you want to decrypt from the list of encrypted files displayed by Passware Kit. Then click the Recover button as shown below:

Groups and Settings

Once you have selected the files to decrypt, Passware Kit groups them according to the decryption options: Known Password, Instant Recovery and Default Recovery. You can add custom groups, modify, or delete groups.

For each group (except for Known Password and Instant Recovery groups, for which the password is recovered instantly regardless of its settings) you can use the Predefined settings, or customize them in Attack Editor. Click "Settings" near the group name to modify the attack settings for the whole group.

You can also Set timeout for files that require a Brute-force approach, this timeout will be used for all attacks.

Also, by choosing files with a Ctrl-click you can then click New Group, create new Custom Recovery group and set a different timeout or attack settings for the chosen files.

Passware Kit allows to apply different password recovery settings to the same file by including the file in multiple batch recovery groups. Use "Add Files" option to add duplicates and other files to the list.

Recovering the Passwords

Once you have set up the list of files and password recovery attacks, click the Recover button to start the batch password recovery process:

While password recovery is in progress, you can pause, resume, or stop it, as well as skip attacks, files, or groups.

As a result, Passware Kit displays the passwords recovered, as well as a log file. A sample result is shown below:

You can enable the option to create unprotected files automatically when a password is recovered for the supported file types or reset at Tools | Options | Files and Folders and choose a folder for unprotected result files. Unprotected copies of the files could then be ingested by other forensic tools for further analysis.