Recover a Mac Wifi password
Yesterday I was looking for my wifi password to give access to a friend when 1password let me down : it wasn’t stored in it.
I googled some “mac recover wifi password” to find only out of date tips (like going to “System Preferences –> Network –> Airport –> Configure” and edit the network : unfortunately, the “Show password button” doesn’t work anymore and shows stars instead on Leopoard 10.5), and a bunch of “it’s easy just hack your network and crack the password“, which might have worked, but I was almost certain that there was a quickest and easiest way to do that, and wasn’t quite ready to bare the excruciating pain in my mind of breaking and entering my own house.
And I was right, as I found the way to do it in one of the comments below yet another out of date solution, left just 7 days ago.
So, here is the solution: Go to:
1. Applications
2. Utilities
3. Keychain Access
4. System (top left; defaults to login)
5. Find the SSID (ie name of the wifi network) of key that you are trying to recover and double-click
6. Select the Show Password checkbox
7. Enter your admin password.
One more time, I was reminded how valuable it is to read comments. That’s where you’ll often find the real/updated answers, or enough matter to understand that what’s told is crap and that you shouldn’t tweet it.
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