Your computer only needs the WiFi password once to connect automatically whenever the network is in range. So it’s easy to forget it.
Windows 10 makes it simple to examine network passwords in case you forget them. And that is a common occurrence for me because I use strong passwords for my WiFi (and you could too).
There are several methods available inside Windows to display your WiFi password in case you forget it, need to share it with someone or use it with a different device.
4 Ways to View WiFi Password in Windows
The WiFi password can be viewed in a few different ways, and I’ll demonstrate each of them for you today. Whether or not you have access to PC’s configuration files as a non-administrator tells which option is more useful to you.
1. Utilise Windows settings to display WiFi password
Being the system administrator of my computer, I have the freedom to use any means I see fit in order to discover the WiFi password.
How? Read on!
- Select Settings from the menu that appears, and then select Network & Internet.
- Locate Network and Sharing Center in the Status menu.
- To access it, select it from list of available networks in View your active networks section and click it.
- Connect to your network’s settings by opening the WiFi status window and selecting Wireless Properties from the menu that appears.
- Then, head to the option labeled “Security,” where you may enable “Show characters” to see your WiFi passphrase.
2. WiFi password may be viewed right on the panel
However, what if you have no access to the Windows 10 settings at all, even though the aforementioned solution works fine?
Or maybe you’d rather speed things up a bit and can commit a short command to memory. The good news is that the Run command gives you instantaneous access to your wireless router’s configurations. This approach ought to function so long as you have access to your network’s configuration options.
- Windows+R will bring up the Run dialog; once there, type ncpa.cpl into the text box and hit OK to apply the changes.
- If you want to check the status of your WiFi connection, just right-click on the network icon in the system tray and choose Status from the menu that appears.
- In the WiFi status panel, select Wireless Properties.
- To view the WiFi password, navigate to the Security menu and then select the Show characters button.
3. Use a command from the Power Shell
Now we’ll discuss a more advanced approach: using the Power Shell’s Network Shell (Netsh) command to see information about your network, such as the password.
In addition, this method can be used to view the passwords for all the networks to which your computer has previously connected. You can use this method, for instance, to find out your business network password from the comfort of your own home, without connecting to the company network. However, if you have already used the Forget feature to scrub the memory of a network, this won’t help.
To use the netsh command, you must first know the WiFi network’s name (SSID). If you’re already connected to the network, seeing the name is no big deal, but if you need to see the password for a network to which you’ve already connected, you’ll have a problem. Fortunately, a Power Shell command exists that will provide a list of all the networks you have ever connected to.
- If for any reason you do not have access to Power Shell, you can still use these instructions in the more familiar Command Prompt.
- To access Power Shell, right-click the Start button and choose it from the context menu that appears.
- Copy and paste netsh wlan show profiles into the box and hit Enter. Under “User profiles,” you’ll find a list of all the networks you’ve added.
- Easily utilize the network name(s) in the following command by copying and pasting the names from here.
- Just replace “wifiname” with the actual name of the network you want to know the password for, and then run the command below.
- So, for me, the command would be netsh wlan show profile “name=SSID hidden” key=clear.
- You can issue the netsh command to accomplish this.
- After pressing the Enter key, a wealth of data pertaining to this system will be shown. Key content is where you’ll find your password in the Security settings section.
4. Use External WiFi Password Viewing Service
To keep track of all your bookmarked networks and their associated passwords in one location, you can utilize a third-party software. With a third-party app, viewing your WiFi details is as simple as clicking a button, making it ideal for those who need to access them regularly. In addition, if you need to accomplish more complex operations, like importing WiFi credentials from another PC/Windows or exporting them, you may want to use third-party software.
I think you’d like trying out WirelessKeyView from NirSoft if you’re game. Even while there are other apps that serve this purpose, my personal favorite is WirelessKeyView due to its intuitive design and no cost to the user.
The program is packaged as a compressed archive (.zip) file that must be unzipped before use. The app will scan for all of your saved WiFi networks once you run it, and display them along with their associated passwords in the Key (Ascii) field. If you double-click on a network, you’ll see even more information about it.
WiFi Password Revealer is an alternative to WirelessKeyView if you’d rather not use it. It’s a piece of software that can be installed on your computer that displays all of your saved network passwords and makes it easy to copy them all at once.
An additional set of techniques
The aforementioned techniques for discovering the WiFi password in Windows 10 should be effective. To be sure, there are a few alternate approaches worth considering.
Accessible via Router’s Web-Based Interface
The router’s configurations are accessible via a web interface. Changing and viewing passwords are typically two separate actions. Because each router has a unique IP address and user interface. So I cannot give you generic instructions to help you with this.
To get an idea, you need to know that IP address of router is required to access interface’s web page. Within, seek out a WiFi or wifi setting. The password-reveal feature has to be included.
On the router’s back
If you haven’t altered the router’s default WiFi password, you can find it written somewhere behind or under the device. Simply grab it and look for a password; you can expect an 8-digit code.
By resetting the router
You can also do a factory reset on your router to clear all settings and enable guest access. Thereafter, you can access the network using the pre-set password. To reset the router, press and hold the reset button for 5-10 seconds. On most routers, you’ll need to use a paper pin or something similar to press and hold it, as it’s hidden inside a hole.
Closing Phrases
If you want to see the WiFi password, I think the first two techniques will be sufficient. To view WiFi passwords without accessing the network, you’ll need a third-party app, which I recommend using if you’re a system administrator responsible for several devices and networks.