Article updated on January 5, 2025 by Byothe
You may have already set up a WiFi network at home (or elsewhere), connected your computer with the default password or a password that you configured, went online for months or even years… and then when you connected a new computer, wondered what the hell that damn password was!
Don't worry, it is quite possible to find the password of the network to which your computer is connected. We will show you how to recover this password on a Windows computer or on a Mac. Note that this is not a trick to discover any password, but rather a way to find a password that you would have misplaced!
How to Find WiFi Password on Windows
To begin, you will need to open theCommand Prompt.
To have access to Command Prompt in Windows, just go to the start menu or search box and type in “cmd. You should see a program called “Command Prompt.” Right-click on it and run it as administrator or click “Run as administrator” in the right pane.
Once theCommand Prompt open, type the following command and press Enter:
netsh wlan show profile name=MonWiFi key=clearIn this command, replace “MyWifi” with the name of the WiFi network you are connected to.
You will thus retrieve a certain amount of information concerning the WiFi network in question and in particular, in the “Security settings” section, the entry entitled “Key contents” simply corresponds to your password (see illustration below).
If you ever do not see your password, remember to check that you have opened theCommand Prompt as administrator.
Start the WLAN Automatic Configuration Service (wlansvc Service)
If you are using this technique to recover WiFi password on Windows computer but you are getting the following error: "The Wireless Local Area Networks Automatic Configuration service (wlansvc) is not running", here is a simple solution:
Click on the Windows Start menu and type “services.msc” in the Run box to access Windows Services. Look for the “WLAN Automatic Configuration Service” service and verify that the status is Running. If not, right-click on this service, select Properties and go to Dependencies. Check all dependencies to ensure that they are all running.
How to find WiFi password on Mac OS
With Mac OS, passwords and WiFi information are stored in Keychain Access. It is then possible to use the BSD command "security" to retrieve something stored in Keychain Access.
To do this, open Spotlight (Cmd + Space) and type “terminal” to open the Terminal window. At the command line, enter the following command (replacing “MyWifi” with the name of your Wifi)
security find-generic-password -ga MonWifi | grep password
Then you will have to enter your Mac username and password to access the OS X Keychain Access. That's it, you will be able to rediscover your Wifi password in clear text (as shown in the image below).
In conclusion, finding the password of a WiFi network you are already connected to can be easily done on both Windows and Mac by using the appropriate commands in Command Prompt or Terminal. However, it is important to note that these methods will only recover passwords for networks you are already connected to, and will not hack other WiFi networks. Always respect the privacy and security of others when using these methods.
If you have any tips of this type to share with us, do not hesitate to let us know in the comments or by sending a message via the contact form ! Thank you
I can't do it, it doesn't work, I'm on Windows 7
Hello Tedy, I don't have a version of Windows 7 on hand... so difficult to help... sorry.