How to View Saved Wi-Fi Passwords on Android Phone
When you connect your Android phone to a Wi-Fi network, it saves the password (just like Windows). So, next time you connect to the same network, you won’t have to enter the password again. But it’s not easy to find and view saved Wi-Fi passwords on your Android phone as they are protected by root permissions.
Android smartphones, by default, don’t support viewing saved or stored Wi-Fi passwords on them. So, you can use this terminal trick to find and view wifi passwords saved on your Android phone. To follow this tutorial, you would need to install a terminal emulator app (preferably Termux) on your Android phone. And your phone must have root access.
TUTORIAL: How to Root your Android phone using the KingRoot app without a PC?
Check this video tutorial before we move to detailed steps on how to find stored Wifi passwords.
View Saved Wi-Fi Passwords on Android Phone using Terminal (or Termux)
In this tutorial, we will be installing a Terminal Emulator app on an Android smartphone. We will use that Terminal app to run Linux commands on the Android smartphone. You can install any terminal app, but we recommend the Termux app.
Step 1: Install Terminal Emulator on Android Phone
First of all, we have to install a Terminal Emulator app on the Android smartphone. Open the Play Store on your phone and search for terminal emulator
.
Select and install any terminal app. In this tutorial, we have used the “Terminal Emulator for Android” app. You may use another app if you wish.
Terminal Emulator for Android will be downloaded and installed on your phone.
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Step 2: Launch the Terminal App and get Root Access
Tap on OPEN to launch the Terminal or Termux app after installation. Now, you will see a command line window opened on your Android smartphone. We will find and view saved Wi-Fi passwords on your Android phone using this terminal.
We are going to need Root Level Access to view system files. So first, we will switch to the “Super User” via the terminal. Remember, you must have the “Super User (SU)” installed on your phone. Type the following command to get root access and press ENTER.
su root
You will see a popup asking to grant terminal emulator superuser permissions. Tap on GRANT to continue.
You will see a toast message saying, “Terminal Emulator has been granted superuser permissions for an interactive shell“. Now we have Root Level Access. Now, we can view saved Wi-Fi passwords on your Android phone.
Step 3: Find the Network Configuration file in Android
After getting superuser permissions, it’s time to find the Network Configuration file in Android. So, go to the “/data/misc/wifi” path in the terminal and list directory content using the following commands.
cd /data/misc/wifi ls
The “wpa_supplicant.conf” file contains all the Wi-Fi networks, saved passwords, and other information. WPA in the name means encryption used is WPA. It may be WEP in some cases. So, the filename will be “wep_supplicant.conf” in those cases.
Step 4: View Saved Wi-Fi Passwords in Android using Terminal App
We need to open the “wpa_supplicant.conf” file to find and view saved Wi-Fi passwords in your android smartphone using terminal or Termux.
So, to view the content of the wpa_supplicant.conf
file, type the following command and press ENTER.
cat wpa_supplicant.conf
Terminal emulator (or Termux) will display the content of the “wpa_supplicant.conf” file. You can view all your saved Wi-Fi network passwords here. Just look for a specific SSID (Wi-Fi Network name) and you will see the password next to PSK.
Note down your password and close the terminal app.
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Find Wi-Fi Passwords Stored on Android Phone using Terminal
Using the above tutorial, you can easily find Wi-Fi passwords stored on your Android smartphone. But you need to Root your phone before trying this. Please note that rooting your phone may void your device’s warranty. Check the following linked tutorial on rooting the android phone using the KingRoot app.
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