Get Wi-Fi Password from Computer (Windows, macOS, Linux)

Sometimes, you may be looking for the password of a Wi-Fi network you’ve earlier connected to, but forgot. Most devices usually won’t display the saved passwords in the Wi-Fi section of the system settings.

In this article, we’ll explore how to get the saved Wi-Fi password from your Windows, macOS, or Linux computer.

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How to find saved Wi-Fi password in Windows

To get the password of the currently connected Wi-Fi network from a Windows laptop or PC, do the following:

1. Ensure you’re connected to the Wi-Fi network for which you want to know the password.
2. Go to Start, type “Control Panel”, then select Control Panel >> Network and Internet >> Network and Sharing Center (or Control Panel >> Network & Internet >> Status >> Network and Sharing Center in Windows 11).
3. Click on your Wi-Fi network name adjacent to “Connections:”. This will open the Wi-Fi Status window.
4. In Wi-Fi Status, click Wireless Properties.
5. Click on the Security tab.
6. Ensure the Show characters checkbox is enabled.

You should be able to view the password of the currently connected Wi-Fi network adjacent to the Network security key label.

Sometimes, you might be looking for the password of a WI-Fi network that you’re not currently connected to, but which is saved on your computer. You can find your saved Wi-Fi passwords using the “netsh” command, from Command Prompt:

Note: You need to have an Administrator account on your computer for doing this.

1. Go to Start and type “Cmd”.
2. Right-click on the first result (Command Prompt) and select Run as Administrator.
3. Type your Administrator password (if required) and click the Allow button in the UAC prompt.
4. When Command Prompt launches, type the following command:
   

   1netsh wlan show profile

   
   This will list all of the saved Wi-Fi SSID names on your computer.
5. Next, to see the password for a particular SSID, type the following command:
   

   1netsh wlan show profile [ssid_name] key=clear

   
   For example, to see the password for a Wi-Fi network named “smartwifi”, type:
   netsh wlan show profile smartwifi key=clear

Running the command will display the details for the specific Wi-Fi network, The password for the Wi-Fi network (SSID) will be displayed under the Security settings section, adjacent to the label “Key Content”.

Thus, you can get the password of any Wi-Fi network previously saved in Windows.

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How to get saved Wi-Fi password in macOS

macOS stores saved Wi-Fi passwords (along with other account passwords) in the Keychain. Thus to access saved Wi-Fi credentials, you need to open the Keychain Access utility.

Follow the steps below to find the password of a previously saved Wi-Fi network on your Mac.

1. Open the Keychain Access utility from the Applications >> Utilities folder in Finder. Alternatively, use Cmd + Space to open Spotlight Search, and launch the app by searching for “keychain”.
2. In the Keychain Access utility, click on login from the left pane, then click the Passwords tab from the top.
3. From the top-right corner, type “network” in the search bar, and browse the results listed with the Kind column as “AirPort network password”. Your saved Wi-Fi networks should be listed here.
4. Double-click the network for which you want to know the password.
5. In the new window, under the Attributes tab, check the “Show password:” option.
6. In the authorization prompt, provide the Mac’s System Admin User ID & Password, and click Allow or OK.

The Wi-Fi password for the selected network will be revealed.

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How to get saved Wi-Fi password in Linux

In Linux, you can get the password of a previously saved Wi-Fi network using a terminal command. The following steps will guide you to know your Wi-Fi Password from a Linux computer.

Note: The steps given below were specifically tested in Ubuntu. But they should work for any other Linux distro.

1. On your Linux computer, open the Terminal and type the following commands:
   

   1cd /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/

   
   

   1ls

   
   This will list all the Wi-Fi networks that your computer has previously connected to, along with the file extension, “.nmconnection”.
2. Next, type the following command to open the respective file by the name of the Wi-Fi network, for which you want to view the password:
   

   1sudo cat [ssid_name].nmconnection

   
   For example, to see the password for a Wi-Fi network named “smartwifi”, type:
   sudo cat smartwifi.nmconnection

The above command will open the specific file in the Terminal. Under [wifi-security] section, look for the “psk” value (psk=password) to get the password of the selected Wi-Fi network.

Now you know how to find the password of a saved Wi-Fi network from a laptop or desktop PC (with Wi-Fi support) running Windows, macOS, or Linux OS.