I find it a bit frustrating when I forget a WIFI key for a particular access point. I find it even more frustrating having to find out by going to system settings or worse, asking for the key again and again. So I thought I should find a much more reliable solution to this problem. The solution, as is the case with most problems, is going to the heart of the matter: the glorious CLI.

Windows

On windows, finding out saved WIFI keys is a simple matter of typing in one command in your terminal. Fire it up by holding the [windows key] + [R Key] and then typing cmd.

netsh wlan show profile name=[SSID] key=clear
#[SSID] is a placehoder for the name of the access point

Linux

On linux, fire up your terminal and read from the System Connections directory.

sudo cat /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/[SSID] | grep psk=
#[SSID] is a placeholder once again

Mac OS

security find-generic password -wa [SSID]
#[SSID] is...Oh you catch the drift

And there you go.

FIN