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In addition to protecting your data, your Wi-Fi password makes sure that no one else is attempting to get your internet connection without your consent. Most routers come with a password, which is notoriously difficult to remember unless you update it yourself. This is in contrast to choosing a password for your email account. You may be looking for the simplest method to remember your Wi-Fi password if you forget to store it or don’t have a password management. A solid password manager may make it simple to recover your password.

If you have never made your own unique password, you can always look on the back of your router if you really can’t remember your Wi-Fi password. Don’t worry if you can’t discover the router’s password on the back. The credentials to EVERY Wi-Fi network you have ever joined to are stored somewhere on your computer.

The Wi-Fi password is saved in your settings for as long as your Mac or Windows machine has previously connected to that network. All the passwords are preserved and available for sharing with anyone who want to connect to Wi-Fi, albeit it can take some research on your side.

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Using MacOS and Windows, follow these steps to get the passwords for every Wi-Fi network you have ever connected to.

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How to locate Wi-Fi passwords in MacOS Keychain Access, the MacOS password management system, contains all of the passwords you have typed and saved on a Mac. Passwords for Wi-Fi networks are included in it.

To begin, launch the Keychain Access app using the search function, then do the following actions:

1. Select System from the sidebar’s System Keychains section.

2. At the top of the window, choose Passwords.

3. Double-click the Wi-Fi network for which you want to get the password.

4. Lastly, click the box next to “Show password” and, when asked, enter your password.

On the MacBook, the Keychain Access software appears.
On MacOS, use the Keychain Access software to locate all of your saved Wi-Fi passwords.
The password you used to access that Wi-Fi network will then be shown in the password box. Double-clicking in the password box allows you to choose the password and, if necessary, copy it to your clipboard.

How to locate Windows Wi-Fi credentials

On Windows, it’s easy to find the password for the Wi-Fi network you’re currently connected to, but it takes some effort to get all of your saved Wi-Fi passwords, so we’ll go over both approaches below.

To get the password for the Windows Wi-Fi network you are now connected to:

1. After clicking the Start button, choose Network and Sharing Center under Control Panel > Network and Internet (Windows 11) or Network and Sharing Center under Settings > Network & Internet > Status (Windows 10).

2. Click the blue-highlighted name of your Wi-Fi network next to Connections.

3. Select the Security tab after selecting Wireless Properties on the resulting Wi-Fi Status screen.

4. Lastly, to see your Wi-Fi network password above it, select the option next to Show characters.

On a Windows laptop, the network sharing center
On Windows, you may quickly get the password for the Wi-Fi network you are now using.
There are other methods to discover your Wi-Fi network passwords, however. There is a technique to retrieve the passwords of every Wi-Fi network you have ever joined to on your Windows computer, but the aforementioned approach only lets you see the password for the network you are now connected to.

To locate all of your Windows Wi-Fi network passwords:

1. On your desktop, right-click the Windows symbol in the taskbar.

2. Select “Admin” from the Windows Terminal.

3. To examine all of the Wi-Fi networks you have connected to, type netsh wlan show profile into your keyboard and press Enter.

4. Type “(Wi-Fi network name)” into netsh wlan display profile after locating the Wi-Fi network you want to access. After entering key=clear (for instance, netsh wlan display profile “Netgear667” key=clear), press Enter.

The computer’s Windows Terminal
All of your Wi-Fi network passwords may be found using Windows Terminal.
Profile, connection, security, and other settings will be shown. The Wi-Fi network password will show up next to Key Content in the Security settings. The instructions mentioned above may also be entered using the Command Prompt tool in addition to Windows Terminal to get your Wi-Fi credentials.

Check out the top password managers for your PC or smartphone if you want to learn more about passwords.