Did you know that your smartphone saves all the Wi-Fi network SSID and password for every network that you have previously connected? That Wi-Fi network at your work place, at home, coffee shop, that one time at that place you don’t want anyone to know about… all of it!
Say the next time you go back to the place, you bring your laptop, or other Wi-Fi enabled devices with you. If you are a regular type of person, you will have to bother yourself asking the person(s) who runs the place for the Wi-Fi password again. But if you are a real boss, you’ll just dig into folders of your Android phone and retrieve the password. That will be particularly handy if the person running the places is reluctant to let you connect multiple devices to their internet Wi-Fi and start sucking up their data plans.
Find the Wi-Fi Password for a network you have previously connected to with your Android Phone
For an Android phone with root access, you can locate the Wi-Fi passwords as easy as browsing with the File Explorer or third-party apps from the Play Store. In phones without root access, this feature is usually hidden from the users, but for rooted phones, it is a matter of browsing through the files and you will see the password in plain text.
Finding the Wi-Fi Password on a rooted Android device
With a rooted device, be it a smartphone or tablet, you simply need to launch the File Explorer app. Apps such as File Explorer Root or the ES File Explorer comes highly recommended for this task.
You basically need to go to data/misc/wifi and look for wpa_supplicant.conf (or wep_supplicant.conf) for networks that uses WEP or WPA encryption respectively.
Once you have downloaded the appropriate File Manager app as mentioned above, launch the app and then go to Local or System Folder. Then go to Device Folder and tap on Data.
Look for a folder named Misc, open it, and then scroll down to another folder named WiFi.
Next open a folder labeled wpa_supplicant.conf
In this folder, you will see a list of text showing SSID, password, and security type for every Wi-Fi network your Android device has ever connected to.
Find Wi-Fi Password using an app
Perhaps you are not the type that like fumbling through and through the File Explorers and going into weirdly named folder after folder. Well, there is an app for that. Simply go to Play Store and install the WiFi Key Recovery app.
You will still need root access for the app to work, but it will do all the technical stuff for you. Simply launch the app, and grant root ‘Superuser’ access and then simply scroll through and find the PSK for the particular Wi-Fi network you are interested in.
