8 Steps To Find Wifi Password Using CMD (Command Prompt)

It often happens to most of us that we forget the password of our WiFi. This is quite a common thing as there are so many other passwords of email accounts, social networking sites, shopping websites that we need to remember. However, what makes forgetting a WiFi more frustrating is the fact that you have almost all your devices connected to the same WiFi.

Here, one thing which you should keep in mind is that whenever you connect any of your devices to a WiFi network and enter the password to access that network, a new WLAN profile gets created of that WiFi network. It means that every time you try to connect to the internet network, that particular profile is stored in your PC/Laptop along with the other related information of the WiFi profile. And, this information is what can help you find WiFi password using CMD (Command Prompt).

While, there are other ways through which you can recover the password of your WiFi network, one of them is by using the settings of your router. However, as browsing through router settings can be quite a task in some cases, instead of using a GUI to find the password, you can consider recovering your WiFi password of your particular network using CMD (Command Prompt). To know how you can find the WiFi password of your network using CMD, go through the information provided below.

Guide to Find WiFi Password Using CMD (Command Prompt)

NOTE: The steps provided below to find the WiFi password using CMD for Windows 10 system. The steps may vary for other operating systems.

1. On your Windows 10 computer, you will first need to open the Command Prompt Make sure that you run it as an administrator.
2. Now, to open the command prompt, you will need to press the Windows + R keys on your keyboard simultaneously. This will open the “Run” box on your system.
3. In the “Run” box field, you will need to type “cmd” and press Ctrl+Shift+Enter keys together. This will open on the “Command Prompt” window in as administrator.

NOTE: Alternatively, you can simply type “Command Prompt” in Start search and select “Run as administrator” option from the right-hand side. This way also you will be able to get to the Command Prompt window.

4. Once you are in the Command Prompt window, you would want to know about all the profiles that are stored on your computer. For this, you will need to type the following command in the CMD –

netsh wlan show profile

5. As you will type the above-mentioned command in the CMD, a list of all the WiFi profiles that you would have connected to using your computer will be displayed on your screen.

6. So now, you will need to enter the following command to see the password of any WiFi network you see on the list.

netsh wlan show profile WiFi-name key=clear

For example, if the name of your WiFi is “JAYSHOME90”, the command will be like this –

netsh wlan show profile JAYSHOME90 key=clear

7. As you will enter the above-mentioned command in the CMD window, you will find different settings listed on your screen. From the displayed information, you will need to check the Security settings section.

8. In the Security settings section, you will need to locate the Key content option to get your WiFi network password next to it.

Apart from using the above-mentioned options to recover your WiFi password, you can also use them to optimize your WiFi more. For instance, you will find the MAC Randomization as disabled in the Profile information section. If you wish you can enable the Mac Randomization feature to avoid your location tracking based on the MAC address of the device.

To Enable MAC Randomization on Windows 10

1. On your computer, go to the Settings section and click on the “Network & Internet” option.
2. Next, you will need to select the WiFi option located on the left-hand side window and select the Advanced options.
3. Then, in the Advanced options section, you will need to enable the “Random Hardware Address” feature in the settings section. In case your wireless hardware does not support this feature, you will not find the “Random Hardware Addresses” section in the settings app.
4. Once you have enabled the feature, you are done. You will now be able to avoid location tracking based on the device’s MAC address.

Moreover, you can see the complete list in the Radio Type section under the Connectivity settings. One of the reasons for slow WiFi can be Channel Interference. So, if you ever face any issue with your WiFi speed, you can change the radio type settings.

So, these are the steps that you will need to follow to find the password of your WiFi network using CMD.