Recover your lost Wi-Fi password on Android

TechnoAdmin

When you enter a Wi-Fi password, the device remembers it indefinitely. But what happens when you need that password again? Your device remembers it, but for security reasons, it will never voluntarily share it. Fortunately, there are ways to display your Wi-Fi password on Android. These methods require a rooted device, since the configuration file that stores the Wi-Fi password is located on a root-only drive.

Although none of them are officially supported, they take advantage of the way Android handles Wi-Fi on a basic level, without breaking or breaking anything.

How to Find a Wi-Fi Password on Android Using ES File Explorer

The first method of finding your Wi-Fi passwords is an excellent app in its own right, ES File Explorer. Now this app isn’t specifically designed to get a Wi-Fi password, but that’s a good thing. ES File Explorer is easily one of the best Android file browsers.

  1. Open your Play Store app, and search for » ES File Explorer . I should get out right away.

    ES File Explorer On Play Store ES File Explorer On Play Store.

  2. Tap ES File Explorer File Manager , then tap Install .
  3. Once you have it, launch ES File Explorer . The home screen it presents lists the main directories. These are the media folders that are normally accessed on a regular basis.
  4. Tap the stacked lines in the top left corner of the screen to open the menu.
  5. Scroll down the menu. Tap Root Explorer to enable it.

    Enable Root Explorer

  6. You will be prompted to grant ES File Explorer root permissions. To accept.
  7. Scroll up through the menu. Tap Local to open the following items, and then find and tap Device to access the root directory of the device.
  8. Tap on the data folder . From there navigate to misc > wifi . The wifi folder contains a handful of items, including Wi-Fi settings. That is the file that contains your Wi-Fi password.
  9. Click wpa_supplicant.conf .
  10. That file contains all of your Wi-Fi configuration information, so don’t mess with it unless you know what you’re doing. However, if you look under the “network” block, you will find an entry for “psk”. That is your password.

    ES File Explorer Wi-Fi Config

    If you connect to multiple Wi-Fi networks with your device, you’ll find a “network” block for each of them. Check the “ssid” entry in each block for your network name.

  11. Write your password in a safe place so you can use it elsewhere.

How to View Wi-Fi Password on Android Using Terminal Emulator

If you prefer not to install a new file manager or prefer to keep everything open source, you can choose to use a terminal emulator on your Android device to access the file that stores your WiFi password.

There are plenty of terminal emulators out there, but Termux is a prime example. It is much more than a terminal emulator, as it brings many Linux command line utilities to Android, such as SSH, allowing you to use Android as a proper Linux distribution; from the command line, anyway.

  1. Start by installing Termux . It is available on both Play Store and F-Droid. Look for it in any of the two, and it will be the first result.

    Termux Termux.

  2. Open Termux . Next, use your built-in package manager to install support for the ‘su’ command. Run the following command in Termux to achieve this:

    $ pkg install termux-tools

  3. Now, use the ‘su’ command in Termux to get root privileges. With root, run the following command to list the contents of the ‘wpa_supplicant.conf’ file:

    Wi-Fi Config Through Termux.

  4. Type in the information you need to access your Wi-Fi.

Show Wi-Fi password on Android using ADB

You may prefer to do it all from your computer. If so, AsDB is just the tool to do it. It’s the Android debugging bridge straight from Google, and you can use it to do just about anything on your device from your computer. You can use ADB to pull Wi-Fi settings directly from your phone and view them on your computer.

  1. Start by installing ADB on your computer. This works best from Linux, but you can use Windows or Mac.

    Linux

    First, if you’re on a Debian-based Linux distribution, you can easily install everything you need from your package manager. The fastboot part isn’t strictly necessary, but it’s nice to have anyway. Open a terminal and run the following command:

    $ sudo apt install android-tools-adb android-tools-fastboot

    Open a terminal and get ready for the next step.

    Windows

    On Windows, you will need to download the latest zip file from Google. Unpack it into a directory you want it to run out of. Open that folder and right click on it. Select the option to open a command prompt there. You will need it in the next step.

    macOS

    Start by downloading the latest zip from Google. Unzip it to a directory you want to run the Android tools from. Open a terminal emulator and run the following command to change directory to the folder where you unpacked the tools.

    $ cd /path/to/android/tools

  2. Connect your Android device to your computer via USB. When plugged in, switch the charging device connection to MTP for file transfer.
  3. Back on the computer, type the following in your terminal window:

    adb devices

     $
  4. A notification will appear on your device asking you to enable USB debugging. Allow it and run the command again. The serial number of your device will appear.
  5. Once you see your device’s serial number, you can extract the file to your computer to view it. Run the following commands from your computer’s terminal: 
     $ adb shell 
 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.Su 
 cp /data/misc/wifi/wpa_supplicant.conf /sdcard/ 
 output $ 
 output $ 
 adb pull /sdcard/wpa_supplicant.conf ~/Downloads/
  6. Open that file with a text editor. You will see “network” blocks in the file. Locate your network by the “side”. The password is found under “psk.”

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