If you’ve forgotten the password for connecting to your Wi-Fi network, you can find it on any Windows 10 devices that have previously connected to that wireless network. By default, Windows 10 saves passwords (keys) of all Wi-FI networks to which the device has ever been connected. In this article, we will show you how to view passwords for saved Wi-FI networks on Windows 10.
The current password of the Wi-Fi network to which your Windows device is currently connected can be viewed from the graphical interface of the Control Panel.
- Open “Settings” > “Network and Internet” > “Status” > “View network adapters and change connection settings”;
Hint. You can open the Network Connections Control Panel dialog by clicking Win+R > ncpa.cpl > Enter;
- Right-click your wireless adapter and select Status;
- Click the Wireless Properties button, go to the Security tab and check the Show characters option;
- The password for connecting to your Wi-Fi router will be shown as plain text in the field Network security key.
This method is quite simple, but it allows you to see only the password for the current Wi-Fi network.
You can list passwords for all saved wireless Wi-Fi networks using the command prompt.
- Run Command Prompt (cmd.exe) or PowerShell console as an administrator;
- Run the command:
netsh wlan show profile
- You will see a list of all known Wi-Fi networks. They are listed in the User Profiles section. To display the connection key for a specific Wi-Fi network, copy its name and run the command:
netsh wlan show profile Xiaomi_12FS key=clear
Hint. If the name of the Wi-FI profile contains spaces, it must be enclosed in quotes.
- Note that this command returned the network name (SSID) and all used settings for connecting to the Wi-Fi access point. The network password is displayed in cleartext in the Key Content field.
Profile Xiaomi_12FS on interface HoweWIFi: ======================================================================= Applied: All User Profile Profile information ------------------- Version : 1 Type : Wireless LAN Name : Xiaomi_12FS Control options : Connection mode : Connect automatically Network broadcast : Connect only if this network is broadcasting AutoSwitch : Do not switch to other networks MAC Randomization : Disabled Connectivity settings --------------------- Number of SSIDs : 1 SSID name : "Xiaomi_12FS" Network type : Infrastructure Radio type : [ Any Radio Type ] Vendor extension : Not present Security settings ----------------- Authentication : WPA2-Personal Cipher : CCMP Authentication : WPA2-Personal Cipher : Unknown Security key : Present Key Content : Derevnya Cost settings ------------- Cost : Unrestricted Congested : No Approaching Data Limit : No Over Data Limit : No Roaming : No Cost Source : Default
- If you only want to display the network security key, use the command:
netsh wlan show profile Xiaomi_20F5 key=clear| Find “Key Content”
Using PowerShell, you can display only a list of SSIDs and keys:
(netsh wlan show profiles) | Select-String "\:(.+)$" | %{$profile_name=$_.Matches.Groups[1].Value.Trim(); $_} | %{(netsh wlan show profile name="$profile_name" key=clear)} | Select-String "Key Content\W+\:(.+)$" | %{$wifipass=$_.Matches.Groups[1].Value.Trim(); $_} | %{[PSCustomObject]@{ PROFILE_NAME=$profile_name;PASSWORD=$wifipass }} | Format-Table -AutoSize
Hint. Wi-Fi profiles are stored in XML files located in the directory C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Wlansvc\Profiles\Interfaces\.
Thus, in Windows 10, you can see the passwords for all saved Wi-Fi networks to which your device has previously connected.
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