How to find a Wi-Fi password on Android

How to find a Wi-Fi password on Android

Show your passwords when you need to share them, but don’t remember them

When you enter a Wi-Fi password, the device remembers it indefinitely; however, for security reasons, it will never share the password voluntarily. There are ways to show Wi-Fi password on Android if you have a rooted device. It is also possible to access all your password protected Android folders with a command line tool called ADB.

The information below should apply no matter who made your Android device: Samsung, Google, Huawei, Xiaomi, etc.

Find WI-Fi passwords on Android using Solid Explorer

Solid Explorer app is one of the best Android file browsers. Use it to recover your Wi-Fi password.

To use these methods, allow root access to the Android device. This may void the warranty. Go back your data before trying to root a smartphone or tablet.

1. Open the Google Play Store app and search Solid Explorer.
2. Press on Solid Explorer File Manager, then press Install.
3. Open Solid Explorer. The Home screen lists your top directories, which are the media folders that you access regularly.
4. Tap the stacked lines in the upper left corner of the screen to open the menu.
5. In the section Storage, Press on Root.
6. In the root file system, press the data.
7. Press on Grant to give Solid Explorer root permissions.
8. Press on misc.
9. Press on wifi.
10. Press wpa_supplicant.conf, then choose a text editor such as SE Text Editor in Solid Explorer. The wpa_supplicant.conf file contains the Wi-Fi configuration information. Do not modify this file.
11. Look under the network block and find the entry for psk. This is the password. If you connect to multiple Wi-Fi networks with the device, you will find a block network for each of them. Check the entry ssid in each block for the network name.
12. Store the password in a secure place so that you can use it later.

How to View WI-Fi Passwords on Android Using Terminal Emulator

If you don’t want to install a new file manager, use a terminal emulator on the Android device to access the file that contains the Wi-Fi password.

There are several terminal emulators, but Termux clearly stands out. It is more than a terminal emulator, as it brings command line utilities, such as SSH, to Android so that you can use a mobile device as a Linux distribution.

To view Wi-Fi passwords with Termux:

1. Search Termux in the Google Play Store and install the app.
2. Open Termux.
3. Enter the following text in the command line:

   $ pkg install termux-tools

4. To add root (superuser) permissions, enter the command:

   $ su

5. When prompted, grant overuse permissions to Termux.
6. Enter the following text on the command line:

   # cat /data/misc/wifi/wpa_supplicant.conf

7. Look under the block network to find an entry for psk.

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

1. Store the password in a secure place.

How to view WI-Fi passwords on Android using ADB

If you prefer to do everything from a computer, the Android Debug Bridge (ADB) is just the tool to do it. Use ADB to pull the Wi-Fi setup directly from a phone and view it on a computer.

Install ADB on your computer. It works best from Linux, but you can use Windows or Mac.

Linux

Open a terminal and run the following command:

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

Windows

On Windows, download the latest platform tools from google. After unzipping the compressed file, open the folder and right click inside it. Select the option to open a terminal window.

Macos

Download the latest Google platform tools for Mac. After unzipping the compressed file, open the Mac Terminal application and run this command:

$ cd /path/to/android/tools

1. Connect the Android device to the computer with a USB cable. To copy the configuration file from Android, switch from connecting on the load device to MTP for file transfer.
2. On the computer, enter the following in a terminal window:

   $ adb devices

3. A notification appears on the device asking you to enable USB debugging. Allow it, then run the above command to see the serial number of the Android device.
4. Run the following commands from the terminal:

   $ adb shell
   $ su# cat /data/misc/wifi/wpa_supplicant.conf

To copy the configuration, run:

# cp /data/misc/wifi/wpa_supplicant.conf /sdcard/
# exit
$ exit$ adb pull /sdcard/wpa_supplicant.conf ~/Downloads/

Then open the file on the computer and navigate to everything.

1. Look for the blocks network in the file. Locate your network by ssid. The password is listed under psk.
2. To exit the shell, enter:

   # exit$ exit

3. Disconnect the Android device.