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by John W. Simek, Vice President of Sensei Enterprises, Inc.

Reveal Saved Wi-Fi Passwords on Your Windows Computer

November 28, 2016

Ever wonder what that password was for the Wi-Fi network that you saved on your Windows computer? First off, you shouldn't be saving Wi-Fi networks for those networks you only connect to on an occasional basis, but that's the topic of another post. There's actually a process where you can reveal the Wi-Fi password for previously saved networks.

  • Right-click the network icon on the toolbar and select "open network and sharing center."
  • In the resulting window, click "Change adapter settings," right-click on the Wi-Fi network, and select "status" on the drop-down menu.
  • In the resulting pop-up window, select "Wireless Properties," then click on the Security tab.
  • You should see a check box beside "show characters." Check this box to reveal your password. (Note: Windows 10 refers to this as a network security key instead of a password.)

The above steps will only work if you are already connected to the network. You'll have to type in commands for networks you are not connected to. The first step is to launch a command prompt as an administrator. Type the command netsh wlan show profile to expose all the saved network names. Once you see the name of the Wi-Fi network you are interested in, type the following command replacing "NETWORK NAME" with the desired network. netsh wlan show profile "NETWORK NAME" key=clear

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