Here’s How to Find All Your Wi-Fi Passwords on Your Mac and Windows

You should never use the same password more than once, but using so many different passwords can make it difficult to remember all of them. If you don’t write them down somewhere, you may never remember certain passwords again, including the one for your Wi-Fi network.

Usually your Wi-Fi password should be printed on the back of your router, but if it’s not, don’t sweat it. There’s another way to find the passwords to all of the Wi-Fi networks you’ve ever connected to. They’re all on your computer somewhere.

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As long as your Windows or Mac computer has connected to that network before, the Wi-Fi password is permanently stored in your settings. It may require a bit of digging on your part, but all of the passwords are there, saved and ready to be shared with anyone who wants to connect to Wi-Fi.

Here’s how to find the passwords to all of the Wi-Fi networks you’ve ever connected to on MacOS and Windows. For more, discover 17 essential settings for customizing your MacBook or how to get the most out of Windows 11.

How to find Wi-Fi passwords in MacOS

Every password you’ve entered and saved on a Mac is stored in Keychain Access, the password management system for MacOS. And that includes Wi-Fi network passwords. 

To start, use the search feature to open the Keychain Access app and do the following:

1. Click on System under System Keychains in the sidebar.

2. Next, click on Passwords at the top of the window.

3. Find the Wi-Fi network you want the password for and double-click on it.

4. Finally, check the box next to Show password and enter your password when prompted.

Keychain Access app pop-up on MacBook

Find all your stored Wi-Fi passwords in the Keychain Access app on MacOS.


Screenshot by Nelson Aguilar/CNET

The password field will then show the password you used to log in to that Wi-Fi network. You can double-click in the password field to select the password and copy it to your clipboard, if needed.

How to find Wi-Fi passwords on Windows

Finding the

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All Those Wi-Fi Passwords You Used Can be Recovered. Here’s How

When you originally set up your home Wi-Fi network, you likely didn’t give your password much thought after connecting your phone and laptop to the internet. That is, until a friend or family member arrives and wants access to your Wi-Fi.

And maybe you don’t remember the password, and didn’t write it down. Is it that super long number on the back of your router? Or did you change it to something more personal?

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Lucky for you, there’s a way to find all your Wi-Fi passwords in a single place — your computer.

Read more: Best Password Managers for 2022

As long as your Windows or Mac computer has connected to the network before, that Wi-Fi password is permanently stored in your settings. It may require a bit of digging on your part, but all of the passwords are there, saved, and ready to be shared with anyone who wants to connect to Wi-Fi.

Here’s how to find the passwords to all of the Wi-Fi networks you’ve ever connected to on MacOS and Windows. For more, discover 17 essential settings for customizing your MacBook or how to get the most out of Windows 11.

How to find Wi-Fi passwords in MacOS

Every password you’ve entered and saved on a Mac is stored in Keychain Access, the password management system for MacOS. And that includes Wi-Fi network passwords. 

To start, use the search feature to open the Keychain Access app and do the following:

1. Click on System under System Keychains in the sidebar.

2. Next, click on Passwords at the top of the window.

3. Find the Wi-Fi network you want the password for and double-click on it.

4. Finally, check the box next to Show password and enter your password when prompted.

Keychain Access app pop-up on MacBook

Find all your stored Wi-Fi passwords in the Keychain Access app on MacOS.


Screenshot by Nelson Aguilar/CNET

The password field will then show the password you used to log in to that Wi-Fi network. You can double-click in the password field to select the password and copy it to your clipboard,

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Technology Alliance States It Is Closer to Killing Off Passwords

A group of technological know-how businesses which includes Apple Inc.,

Alphabet Inc.’s

Google and

Microsoft Corp.

states it is a action closer to eradicating what several men and women get in touch with a single of the worst facets of the internet expertise: passwords.

The Rapidly Identification On the net Alliance has for approximately a 10 years worked on a system that allows users log into their on the internet accounts merely by using the unlock mechanisms of their smartphones or personal computers. Relatively than sending a password above a community prone to exterior interference, people link a community “key,” which sits on the account service provider’s server, to a private 1, which can not be eradicated from their unit.

Past versions of the group’s procedure even now demanded persons on new products to enter passwords for each individual account in advance of they could go password-free. Now, it suggests it has uncovered a way to permit people log into on the internet accounts with their faces, fingerprints and PIN codes straightaway, even on brand-new gadgets.

The update “means that consumers do not want passwords any longer,” stated a white paper by the alliance, termed FIDO for shorter. “As they transfer from product to system, their FIDO qualifications are now there, ready to be utilised.”

The alliance, which signifies a lot more than 250 associates, has been striving to reduce reliance on passwords given that 2013, when 6 companies such as

PayPal Holdings Inc.

and

Lenovo Team Ltd.

arrived jointly to produce a new, safer market typical for on line authentication.

Passwords produce not just friction on the information superhighway, critics have very long complained, but genuine irritation and even deserted accounts when consumers overlook their secret codes. They also still leave consumers, companies and other organizations vulnerable to hackers and other terrible actors.

Security remedies this sort of as two-component authentication, in which consumers normally health supplement passwords with force notifications or codes despatched by applications or texts, carry their individual drawbacks. A lot of men and women seem uninclined to decide in.

“Even even though we know in

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