The short answer
Open a Command Prompt as administrator and run
netsh wlan show profile name="YourNetwork" key=clear. The password is on
the Key Content line. Windows has stored it ever since you first
connected, so there’s nothing to reset.
Step 1: open Command Prompt as administrator
This is the part people miss, then wonder why the password never shows. Press
the Windows key, type cmd, and instead of hitting Enter, choose Run as
administrator. The password only prints from an elevated prompt. A normal
one will list your networks but quietly leave the Key Content line out.
Step 2: list the networks Windows remembers
You need the exact name of the network, the way Windows saved it. List them:
netsh wlan show profiles You’ll get a block titled “User profiles” with one “All User Profile” line per saved network. Copy the name you want, spelling and capitalization included. If it has spaces or accents, you’ll wrap it in quotes in the next step.
Step 3: reveal the password
Swap in the network name and ask for the key in clear text:
netsh wlan show profile name="HomeWiFi" key=clear Scroll to the Security settings section. The line that matters is Key Content, and next to it sits your password in plain text. That’s it. Here’s what the whole sequence looks like end to end:
Bonus: dump every saved password at once
Setting up a new laptop and want all of them? Open PowerShell as administrator and run this. It walks every profile and prints its name with its key:
(netsh wlan show profiles) | Select-String "All User Profile" | ForEach-Object { ($_ -split ":")[1].Trim() } | ForEach-Object { netsh wlan show profile name="$_" key=clear | Select-String "Key Content" | ForEach-Object { "$_" } } It’s a bit dense, but it saves you running step 3 twenty times. Honestly I keep it in a notes file and paste it on every fresh install.
When it won’t work
A couple of dead ends worth knowing. On an open network there’s no key, so no Key Content, which is expected. On a corporate or campus network using WPA2-Enterprise (you logged in with a username, not a shared password), Windows never had a reusable key to store, so there’s nothing to recover here. And if you get “profile … is not found on the system”, recheck the name against the list from step 2, quotes and all.
Other systems work differently, and they each get their own guide: macOS hides
saved WiFi keys in Keychain Access (or security find-generic-password in
Terminal), and on Linux NetworkManager keeps them under
/etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/, readable with nmcli.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need administrator rights to see the WiFi password?
Yes. Listing the saved profiles works in a normal Command Prompt, but the key=clear part that prints the password only works in a Command Prompt opened as administrator. Without elevation the Key Content line is simply missing.
There is no Key Content line. Why?
Three usual reasons. You did not open the prompt as administrator. The network is open (no password to show). Or it is an enterprise network (WPA2-Enterprise, 802.1X) where there is no shared key, just your account credentials, which Windows does not store as a recoverable password.
Can I get the passwords for every saved network at once?
Yes, with a short PowerShell one-liner that loops over every profile and prints its Key Content. It is in the last step below. Handy when you are setting up a new machine and want to copy everything across.
Does this work on Windows 10 and Windows 11?
Both, identically. netsh has shipped with Windows for years and the wlan commands have not changed, so the same steps work on Windows 10 and 11.