Have you ever saved a complicated Wi-Fi password on your computer, and then some time later you want to share it on another device or with a guest, but you’ve completely forgotten or lost the password? Well, don’t fret, because it’s possible to recover a saved Wi-Fi password on both Windows and Linux systems.
Recovering a saved Wi-Fi password on a Windows computer
These commands can be ran on either Windows PowerShell or Command Prompt. We will use PowerShell.
- On your keyboard press ⊞ Win + X. The Windows-X Menu opens.
- Press I to open Windows PowerShell.
- Enter the following command:
netsh wlan show profiles
Saved Wi-Fi profiles are listed. For example:User profiles
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All User Profile : ProfileNameOne
All User Profile : ProfileNameTwo
In this example, the profile names are ProfileNameOne and ProfileNameTwo.
- Enter the following command, replacing the ExampleProfile with the name of the profile you’ve discovered in step 3:
netsh wlan show profiles ExampleProfile key=clear
Detailed information on the profile will be displayed. Included in this will be the “Key Content” row, which will display the saved Wi-Fi password in clear text.
Recovering a saved Wi-Fi password on a Linux computer
- On your keyboard press Ctrl + Alt + T to open a Terminal.
- Enter the following command:
ls /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/
This will list the name of your network profile files.
- Enter the following command, replacing the ExampleProfile with the name of the profile you’ve discovered in step 2:
sudo grep psk= /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/ExampleProfile
The output will show the line from the file that contain “psk=”, revealing the Wi-Fi password.