I love working from cafes, particularly the ones with free Wi-Fi. That is the reason I have saved Wi-Fi passwords of several cafes in my locality. However, sometimes you don’t go to these places alone and are accompanied by your acquaintances who might as well require the Wi-Fi access. If you have your laptop with you then it’s not that complex to make it show the passwords. But on a Smartphone, it is not that simple. And the probability of our mobile being with us than our laptops is considerably more.
You can directly retrieve the Wi-Fi password from your phone itself. Additionally, this is a useful way to know because it can be helpful in many other situations when you urgently need the Wi-Fi password of a network you earlier connected to on the phone. Before we go ahead, it is essential to make it clear that the procedure only works on rooted and jailbroken Android and iOS devices respectively. With that out of our way, let’s now see how we can get the passwords. We will first see the process for Android and then move on to iOS devices.
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Steps To Access Saved Wi-Fi Passwords On Android
Step 1: Make sure you have rooted your Android device. If your device is not rooted, we have given a procedure for rooting (For instance: Samsung Note-2). click here to follow the steps.
Step 2: As we will have to unwrap a system file on Android, we cannot use the conventional file explorer that comes pre-installed on the device. We will use ES File Explorer for the task. Click here to Download.
Step 3: Install ES File Explorer App from Play Store. Open ES File Explorer, now move up a folder (to the root folder) in ES File Explorer and you will see a directory called data. Please have a look at the screenshots below
Step 2: As we will have to unwrap a system file on Android, we cannot use the conventional file explorer that comes pre-installed on the device. We will use ES File Explorer for the task. Click here to Download.
Step 3: Install ES File Explorer App from Play Store. Open ES File Explorer, now move up a folder (to the root folder) in ES File Explorer and you will see a directory called data. Please have a look at the screenshots below
Step 4: Navigate to data/misc/wifi folder.
Step 5: You will find a file named “wpa_supplicant.conf”.
Step 6: Tap on the file to open it up and make sure you use ES File Explorer‘s built-in text/HTML viewer for the task.
In the file you will be able to see the network SSID and their passwords next to it. You can now explore for the SSID (network name) and make a note of the password next to it and close the file. Please make sure that you do not edit the file or you might start having trouble with your Wi-Fi connectivity.
Let’s now have a look at how we can get the passwords on an iOS device.
Let’s now have a look at how we can get the passwords on an iOS device.
Retrieving Saved Wi-Fi Passwords on iOS
If you have jailbroken your device, install a nifty tweak called NetworkList from Cydia. After you have installed the tweak, all you need to do is go to the Wi-Fi settings of your device and you will see a new button named Network Passwords in there. In iOS 7 it will be shown as Known Networks.
Just tap on it and you will be able to see all the Wi-Fi passwords that are stored on your device.
Network list is very basic and only displays the passwords. You don’t even have the permission to select and copy it to your clipboard to send it as a text message. You just need to use the conventional method of a pen and a paper and write it down or memorize it.
Author : Mohammed Ashfaq Ahmed
Designation: Associate Blogger
Bio: A design oriented person who basically focus on the architectural phase rather than its actual implementation. He is a computer science engineer with expertise in UI framework.
Bio: A design oriented person who basically focus on the architectural phase rather than its actual implementation. He is a computer science engineer with expertise in UI framework.
