How to Find a Saved Wi-Fi Password

You are setting up a new laptop, or a visitor wants to get online, and the Wi-Fi password is a nineteen-character string that someone wrote on a sticky note in 2019 and then lost.

The good news is that you almost certainly do not need to find that note. Every device currently connected to that network has the password stored, and on all three major platforms there is a supported way to read it back or hand it over without typing it.

One thing to be clear about before you start: these are not ways around security. Every method below requires you to already be signed in on the device as its owner — an administrator account on Windows, or an unlocked phone. They recover a credential you already have, on a device you already control. There is no technique here for getting onto a network you do not have access to.

Pick your source device

Windows — the command line method

This is the fastest and most reliable route, and it works for any network saved on that PC, whether or not you are currently connected to it.

Open an administrator terminal: right-click the Start button and choose Terminal (Admin) on Windows 11, or Windows PowerShell (Admin) on Windows 10.

List every saved network:

netsh wlan show profiles

You will get a list under “User profiles” showing every network this PC has ever saved. Find the name you want.

Then show that network’s password:

netsh wlan show profile name="YourNetworkName" key=clear

Keep the quotation marks — they are required if the name contains spaces, and harmless if it does not. The name must match exactly, including capitalisation.

Scroll to the Security settings section near the bottom of the output and look for:

Key Content           : YourPasswordHere

That is your password.

If the Key Content line is missing entirely, the profile was saved under a different Windows user account or pushed by a workplace policy, and the key is not recoverable this way.

The graphical alternative

If you prefer not to use a terminal, and you are currently connected to the network:

1. Press Win+R, type ncpa.cpl and press Enter.
2. Right-click your Wi-Fi adapter → Status.
3. Click Wireless Properties.
4. Go to the Security tab.
5. Tick Show characters.

The password appears in the Network security key field. This only works for the network you are connected to right now, which is why the command line method is more useful.

Export everything at once

If you are about to run a Windows Network reset — which deletes every saved Wi-Fi password on the machine — save them all first:

netsh wlan export profile key=clear folder=C:\WiFiBackup

Create the folder first. You get one XML file per network, each containing the password in plain text. These files are as sensitive as the passwords themselves, so delete them once you are done.

This is worth doing before the reset step in laptop Wi-Fi keeps disconnecting, which is where most people discover the hard way that a network reset takes every password with it.

Android — share the QR code

Android 10 introduced a built-in Wi-Fi sharing feature, and it is on essentially every Android phone sold since 2019.

1. Open Settings → Network & internet → Internet (on Samsung, Connections → Wi-Fi).
2. Tap the network you are connected to, or the gear icon beside it.
3. Tap Share — on Samsung, the QR code button.
4. Authenticate with your fingerprint, face or PIN.

A QR code appears. On most phones, including Pixel and Samsung, the password is printed in plain text directly beneath it.

The receiving device simply points its camera at the code. Android phones and iPhones both recognise Wi-Fi QR codes natively in the camera app and offer to join — no typing at all.

If your phone shows the QR code but not the text, open any QR scanner app and scan the code from the other phone’s screen. It decodes to a string like:

WIFI:S:NetworkName;T:WPA;P:ThePasswordHere;;

The password is the part after P:.

For saved networks you are not currently connected to, the same screens work on most phones — go to Saved networks in the Wi-Fi settings and open the one you want.

iPhone and iPad — iOS 16 and later

Apple added direct password viewing in iOS 16, and it is well hidden.

1. Settings → Wi-Fi.
2. Tap the blue i icon next to the network name.
3. Tap the Password field, which shows as dots.
4. Authenticate with Face ID, Touch ID or your passcode.
5. The password is revealed, with a Copy button beside it.

On iOS 17 and later, you can also see every saved network: Settings → Wi-Fi → Edit (top right) → authenticate → tap any network in the list to view its password.

Sharing without viewing it

Apple’s older sharing method still works and avoids revealing the password at all. With both devices unlocked, nearby, with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi on, and each other’s Apple ID in Contacts:

1. On the new device, select the network and tap the password field.
2. A prompt appears on the already-connected device offering to Share Password.
3. Tap Share Password.

This also works from an iPhone to a Mac and vice versa.

Mac — Keychain Access

macOS stores Wi-Fi passwords in the login keychain.

1. Open Keychain Access (Spotlight search for it).
2. Select System in the sidebar, and Passwords in the category list.
3. Find the network name and double-click it.
4. Tick Show password.
5. Enter your Mac login password.

On macOS Sonoma and later, there is a faster route: System Settings → Wi-Fi → Advanced → the ⋯ menu beside a network → Copy Password.

If no device remembers it

When nothing on the network has the password in a readable form, go to the source.

Check the router label. Most routers have a sticker on the base or back listing the default network name and a factory Wi-Fi key. If nobody ever changed it, that is your password.

Log into the router’s admin page. Connect a device to the network by any means — ethernet cable is ideal — and open 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1 in a browser. The admin username and password are usually on the same label. Look under Wireless, Wi-Fi or WLAN settings; most routers show the current key, and all of them let you set a new one.

The reset button is the last resort. Holding the recessed reset button for about ten seconds restores factory defaults, including the factory Wi-Fi password on the label. It also erases your network name, any custom DNS, port forwarding and guest network settings — and every device in the house will need reconnecting. Use it only when you cannot get into the admin page at all.

What not to do

• Do not install a “Wi-Fi password recovery” app. On Android they cannot read the system Wi-Fi configuration without root access, so the free ones show you nothing and the paid ones show you adverts. The built-in QR share does the job.
• Do not download third-party Windows password viewers. Everything they do, netsh wlan show profile does natively and without installing anything.
• Do not photograph the QR code and message it around. It contains the full password in plain text and will sit in a chat history indefinitely.
• Do not use “WPS” as a shortcut. The WPS PIN method has a well-documented brute-force weakness and should be disabled on your router, not relied on.
• Do not leave exported profile XML files on disk. They store the password unencrypted in plain text.

A better habit for guests

If you find yourself hunting for this password regularly, turn on your router’s guest network. It gives visitors internet access with a separate, simpler password, keeps them off the network segment your printers, NAS and smart home devices live on, and means you never hand out the credential that protects everything else.

Nearly every router made in the last decade supports it, usually one toggle under Wireless settings.

If the password turns out to be correct and a device still will not connect, the problem is not the credential — Wi-Fi works on your phone but not your laptop covers the case where one device rejects a network everything else accepts.