How to find your Wi-Fi password

Wi-Fi passwords help maintain a level of browsing privacy and keep strangers or neighbors from stealing your bandwidth.

If you aren't in charge of your network, or rarely add new devices to it, you might forget what security key you picked. Retrieving this can be easy if you can access the admin panel of the router, but this isn't always an option-- like when you aren't in charge of the network, or you forgot that password too. Fortunately there's an easy-to-use program that can retrieve the security information for networks saved on your computer. Just follow these three easy steps.

What you'll need:

• A network you've lost the security key for
• A computer connected to said network OR
• The network information stored on your computer

(Credit: Screenshot by Nicole Cozma)

Step 1: Download WirelessKeyView (or the 64-bit version of WirelessKeyView) to a computer that can connect to the wireless network.

(Credit: Screenshot by Nicole Cozma)

 

Step 2: Extract the zip to a location of your choosing (the desktop is fine) and then run the downloaded program.

(Credit: Screenshot by Nicole Cozma)

 

Step 3: Take note of the security information for the networks you're interested in. Whether you want the hex value or the ASCII value is determined by what key type was used for the network encryption.

This tool is very handy when helping friends or relatives who can never remember their network keys. It's also great for adding new devices to a WiFi connection when the network admin is off at school, work, or got lost time traveling. If all else fails, the option always exists to fully reset the router, but this method is far less intrusive.