How to Recover WiFi Password When Your Forgot It

Is your macOS or Windows computer connected to WiFi and you forgot the password? Your computer remembers the Wi-Fi password If you ever connected to Wi-Fi in the past. Instead of factory resettings wireless router, there is another simple way to recover the WiFi password that you forgot. If you are using Wi-Fi connection on your Windows or macOS computer then its easy to view the Wi-Fi password from Operating System settings.

You can change the password from the WiFi router settings, right? But, you might also don’t remember the router’s IP address and admin password as well. You are not alone, and this usually happens to me. So, resetting the router to the factory settings comes in mind, but this is a time-consuming job to reset it and reconfigure again. So, follow the method to recover password from Windows or Mac settings, If you can’t do that then either find the password on the router sticker or from the router control panel or even completely reset the router to factory settings. Let’s discuss all this below.

Ways to recover Wi-Fi password

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  • Find password in Windows or macOS settings
  • Find the password on your router backside
  • Reset Wi-Fi password from router settings or factory reset it.

Find Password on your computer

In this guide, you will learn to recover forgotten Wi-Fi password on your Windows and Mac computer. Below Windows and Mac methods only works If you ever connected your Windows or Mac computer to the Wi-Fi network which password you want to recover. If you connected to that Wi-Fi network in the past, then Windows or Mac probably remember the network name and password.

Recover Wi-Fi password on Windows

To recover Wi-Fi password on windows follow this steps and retrieve it from Network and Connections settings.

  1. First, we need to open Network Connections in the Contro Panel, Press Windows+R keys from keyboard to open Run Window.
  2. Type ncpa.cpl in the Run Windows and hit Enter to open the Network Connection settings.
    run-command-network-connection-windows
  3. To recover Wi-Fi password of specific Wi-Fi network Right-Click on it and select the “Status” option from the menu.
    wireless-networks-windows
  4. On the Wi-Fi, Status window clicks the “Wireless Properties” button.
    wi-fi-status-wireless-properties-windows
  5. Select the Security tab on the Wireless Network Properties window. Click the “Show characters” checkbox to view the saved Wi-Fi password, you can see the password in Network security key textbox. You must have administrator access on the Windows computer to see this.
    find-wifi-password-windows-computer

Find the Wi-Fi password on Mac

If in the past you connected to the wireless connection once on your Mac. The password of your Wi-Fi network stored in the macOS Keychain Access utility. There is a way to see this password follow the given steps.

  1. First, we need to run Keychain Access utility, press cmd+spacebar to open the Spotlight Search.
  2. Type “Keychain Access” and open the utility.
  3. In the Keychain Access utility window, select “System” option on the left-side and you will see the list of all the Wireless networks on the right-side.
  4. Right-click on the network name and select “Copy Password to Clipboard” from the menu.
  5. You are accessing a secure section of the macOS, so you need to enter username and password couple of times.
  6. Once, you have done that successfully, the password will be copied to the Clipboard. Go ahead and paste it into the text document.

Now use the recovered passphrase to connect other devices to that Wi-Fi network.

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