How to read an .xls file that is encrypted with R?

Question

Typically I use the readxl package (which is quite good) for reading excel files:

 read_excel(path = 'ihateexcel.xls', sheet = 1)

However, the session will essentially freeze if I try and read an encrypted .xls file. Obviously don't want to save the file as .csv as I'll lose the encryption or have to use another encryption. Can't seem to find this functionality in other packages xlsx either.

How do I read an .xls file that is encrypted in excel?

Answer 1

excel.link can help you in opening password protected files.

You can pass your 'password' in one of the arguments.

Usage

xl.read.file(filename, ...... password = NULL)