I love working at coffee shops, especially ones with free Wi-Fi. There’s nothing better than working with a bit of background white noise and writing with a hot cup of coffee by your side. That’s why I have saved the Wi-Fi passwords of many local coffee shops. However, sometimes you don’t go to these places alone, but with friends, who may also need Wi-Fi access. If you bring a laptop it is not difficult to make it show the password. But on the phone, it’s not that simple. And the possibilities of phones are significantly more with us than laptops.
Asking the bartender is always an option, but why bother them when you can retrieve it from your own phone. Also, this is a useful method to know as it can be useful in many other situations when you desperately need the Wi-Fi password of the network you previously connected to on your phone.
Before we get started, it’s important to clarify that this procedure only works on rooted and jailbroken Android and iOS devices, respectively (the part that talks about this isn’t straightforward on phones).
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There is no way you can get the Wi-Fi password without admin access because this information is stored in the device’s system folder. If you haven’t rooted your Android yet then you should check out our collection of posts on how to root your Android and decide for yourself. For iOS users, here is our collection of jailbreaking. Yes, we are platform agnostic like that.
With that in mind, now let’s see how we can get the password. We’ll first look at the process for Android, then move on to iOS devices.
Recover Wi-Fi Password on Android
Since we will have to open system files on Android, we cannot use the traditional file browser that comes pre-installed on the device. We will be using ES File Explorer for the task. We have seen a tutorial on how we can use ES File Explorer to view and edit system files on Android. Please take a look if you don’t know about the process.
Now move up one folder (to the root folder) in ES File Explorer and you will see a folder named data. Navigate to the data/misc/wifi directory and you will find a file named wpa_supplicant.conf. Click on the file to open it and make sure you use the built-in ES File Explorer text/HTML viewer for the task.
In the file, you should be able to see the network SSIDs and their passwords next to them. Now you can search for the SSID (network name) and write down the password next to it and close the file.
Please make sure you don’t edit the file, or you may start having problems with your Wi-Fi connection. There are certain apps listed in the Play Store for the task but it is better to use this manual method to get the password than to install that crap adware.
Now let’s see how we can get the password on an iOS device.
Recover Wi-Fi Password on iOS
If you’ve jailbroken your device, install a nifty tweak called NetworkList from Cydia. Once you’ve installed the tweak, all you need to do is go into your device’s Wi-Fi settings and you’ll see a new button called Network password in there. In iOS 7, it will be displayed as Network is known. Just tap it and you will be able to see all the Wi-Fi passwords stored on your device.
The network list is very basic and only shows passwords. You don’t even have the right to select and copy it to the clipboard to send as a text message. You just use the usual method of a pen and a piece of paper, and write it down (or memorize it).
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Conclusion
So that’s how you can get your saved Wi-Fi passwords on your iOS and Android devices. If you know of a better way to complete the task, don’t forget to share it with us in the comments.
Top photo source: liecf
Categories: How to
Source: thpttranhungdao.edu.vn/en/
