Did you forget your home Wi-Fi password? Seeing as how these are usually long strings of letters and numbers mashed together (if set by your ISP), it's only normal that you end up drawing a blank face when a friend asks to hook up to your network in order speed things along and save on his monthly data allocation. Thankfully, you're aren't at all helpless, and there are a few things you can do to see the password and perhaps even use it to change it to something that you're more likely to remember in the future.



How to see and recover a saved, but forgotten Wi-Fi password on Android

1. The Windows way

Since it is more likely that you have your laptop PC connected to the Wi-Fi network than a rooted Android device, let's first talk about the Windows way — it's easier too. Start by right clicking on the Wi-Fi signal icon on the bottom right as shown. Click on Open Network and Sharing Center.

2. The Windows way, step #2
Once Network and Sharing Center has loaded, just left click on your current Wi-Fi connection, as shown.

3. The Windows way, step #3
Yet another window will pop up. Now click on Wireless Properties .

4. The Windows way, step #4
Within the last window, there are two tabs — Connections and Security . Go for
Security . Once there, you'll see your password, but hidden. You can now reveal it by ticking the Show characters box as shown. Voilà!


5. The Android way, step #1
If you don't have a Windows laptop connected to the Wi-Fi network, or simply prefer to use your rooted Android device, here's what you need to do. First off, go ahead and download any of the many root explorers on the Play Store. We like Root Browser .

Once installed, navigate inside the data folder.
6. The Android way, step #2
Next, go for the misc folder.

7. The Android way, step #3
Now, enter wifi .

8. The Android way, step #4
Locate the wpa_supplicant.conf file and tap on it. You should be provided at least two methods of opening the file. Go for RB Text Editor.

9. The Android way, step #5
Once inside, you'll see a bunch of cryptic code looking like this. All you need to do now is find the corresponding portion related to your Wi-Fi network. The
ssid part tells you the name of the network, while psk is where you'll get your password from. That's it!

10. One last thing
As mentioned, newer Samsung devices have the password section of this file encrypted for security reasons. To our knowledge, there's no (easy) way to obtain the password this way on a Samsung smartphone at this point. You're left with the laptop PC option. Good luck.
source:phonearena.com

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