Find your Wi-Fi password on PC, Mac, Android and iPhone

If we have forgotten the password to access the Wi-Fi network or we need to recover it after formatting a device or the arrival of a friend at our house for the first time, we have several methods that we can use for recovery, both on PC and on the main smartphones.

Furthermore, if we live in a very busy area and our wireless network is also visible to other people, it is a good idea to change the Wi-Fi password every now and then to prevent someone from somehow taking advantage of it without permission.

So let’s see how to find the Wi-Fi password stored on your PC, Mac, Android smartphone and iPhone so you can memorize it or change it if necessary.

READ ALSO: Get friends to connect to Wi-Fi without giving them the password

1) Find Wi-Fi password on PC

View the password of a wireless network on a Windows PC to which you are already connected (because this was previously stored) is quite simple, even if you need to be an administrator of the computer.

To obtain the password immediately, press the keys together Windows+R we write the command ncpa.cpl in the box Run and press the button Sending.

The list of network cards present on the PC will open; with the right mouse button we click on the Wi-Fi network card, then click on Statethen up Wireless Propertieslet’s get into the tab Safety and finally we tick the box Show characters.

If instead we want to recover the password of a Wi-Fi network a which we have linked to in the past but which is now no longer present nearby (for example the password of a friend or a particular hotspot), we can use the command prompt.

After opening the prompt on our PC we type the command:

netsh wlan show profile

We press Enter on the keyboard to see the names of the stored networks. Now let’s always write in the prompt:

netsh wlan show profile name=NOME_RETE key=clear

The result of this command reports various information about the network in question (we type its name correctly), including a section of Security settings under which we will find the entry Key contenti.e. the access password for that Wi-Fi network.

Wireless Key View

In addition to the built-in methods it is possible to use automatic tools to recover network and internet passwords and Wi-Fi router passwordsas an example Wireless Key Viewsimple to use and much more practical, especially for beginners.

2) Find Wi-Fi password on Mac

If you are using a Mac computer, the procedure for finding the password of a saved wifi network is quite simple. Using the Spotlight app or navigating the applications folder, we open the program Key fob access (which is found in Applications > Utilities).

From the window that opens, select, from the left column, System and below Password to see, on the tab on the right, the Wi-Fi networks we used on the Mac, with the possibility of clicking recover the lost password by clicking on the relevant item and then on Show password (The computer administrator password will also be required here).

On Mac, therefore, the procedure is even simpler than on Windows, which definitely requires a few more steps to recover Wi-Fi passwords, especially the “old” ones.

2) Find Wi-Fi password on smartphone

Like on computers too on iPhone, iPad and Android devicesallow us to see the stored passwords only if we have administrator permissions or if we have enabled special cloud options, although there is a trick to discover it using the options for share your wifi password.

Android

Only on Android can you use a trick to uncover the Wi-Fi password stored in your smartphone without rooting; for the purpose you use the Wi-Fi password sharing feature which creates a QR code and then by scanning the QR code, you get the plaintext password.

On recent Android smartphones all we have to do is open the path Settings > Wi-Fi & Network and tap on Wireless o Wi-Fi; we now press on the network to which we are connected to generate the QR code (the brightness of the screen will increase to improve visibility); alternatively we open the Saved networks menu and press on the network whose password we want to recover to view the QR code.

The QR code, if shared, allows you to connect another smartphone to the network without having to communicate the password. We can recover this QR code by performing one phone screenshot and subsequently opening one of the app to read QR codes from PC or smartphone e then discover the plaintext password.

If we have the smartphone unlocked, we can proceed with a file manager optimized for use with root, such as Root Browser Classic.

Having opened the app and provided root permissions, we navigate to the path /data/misc/wifiwe open the file with the integrated text viewer on the mobile phone wpa_supplicant (which must not be modified for any reason!); we will find the list of memorized networks and the related access keys, which are indicated in the line psk.

Alternatively we can use the app Wi-Fi Password Viewer. Using root permissions, it performs exactly the same operation we saw earlier, but in a much nicer and clearer interface.

iPhone

Even on iPhone it is possible to quickly view the saved password by taking us along the path Settings -> Wi-Fipressing the “i” button next to the name of the network to which we are connected, pressing on Password and using Face ID or Touch ID to view your password.

Alternatively we can connect an iPhone, a Mac or an iPad that tries to access a network to which we are already connected using the Apple’s fast password sharing system.

To use this function, let’s make sure that our iPhone is connected to the Wi-Fi network to be connected, go to the device to connect, go to Settings -> Wi-Fipress on the name of the network, bring the two devices closer together and finally press on Share passwords in the sharing window that appears.

3) Find Wi-Fi password from router

To conclude, let’s not forget that the Wi-Fi password can be viewed and modified directly from the router: all we have to do is access the router configuration panel as already explained in another article, enter the section reserved for Wi-Fi and view the forgotten password, with any device.

Setting and changing network passwords is one of the main options of the Wi-Fi Routeralready explained in detail and which we recommend following in order to quickly recover the password without wasting too much time (provided we remember the router access password!).

Conclusions

The methods recommended in the guide Obviously they do not allow you to recover the passwords of Wi-Fi networks that we do not know or to illegally access your neighbors’ networks (no hacker tools!).

These methods can only be applied if at least one device is regularly connected to our Wi-Fi router (by manually entering the password, when we still remembered it, or via WPS connection), so as to be able to recover, within the system files, the file that encryptedly stores the access password for a specific network name.

On some it is visible very easily (PC and Mac), on other devices it may be necessary to unlock some advanced features (out of warranty) to correctly view all the stored passwords.

To learn more we can read the guide to Default password and login for all Routers and the guide to change password on a modem.