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I want to find the password for the wireless network that I am currently connected to (and I entered the password when connecting to the network). How can I do this in Ubuntu?

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  • 1
    I went to "connection information" and didn't find the password.
    – Anderson Green
    Jun 27, 2012 at 20:18
  • 2
    almost there... you need the edit connections below that ;)
    – Rinzwind
    Jun 27, 2012 at 20:22

9 Answers 9

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82

Left click the connections icon at the top right.

Choose edit connections and then choose edit on the connection you need and click the wireless security.

1

And click the 'show password'checkbox

2

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  • Ah, my command-line ways were betrayed by my solution :) I like this one better, FWIW.
    – roadmr
    Jun 27, 2012 at 22:44
  • 1
    Well I like both with a preference to command line @roadmr :D
    – Rinzwind
    Jun 28, 2012 at 7:17
45

If you want to do this with the command line, the wireless network configuration files are saved in the /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/ directory. You can get them all at once like this:

sudo grep -r '^psk=' /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/

This will give you output like this:

/etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/MyExampleSSID:psk=12345
/etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/AnotherSSID:psk=password

You can suppress the filename with the -h flag:

sudo grep -hr '^psk=' /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/

The output is easier to read at a glance:

psk=12345
psk=password
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  • 2
    This is working charmly
    – Wong Jia Hau
    Nov 14, 2018 at 7:18
17

Open a terminal (press Ctrl+Alt+T), then type:

sudo cat /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/<your-SSID>

(Of course, substitute <your-SSID> with your network's name.)

Look for the line named psk. This should contain your password, after the = sign.

psk=notreallymypassword
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15

In the command line:

nmcli dev wifi show-password
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  • First one down the line that worked perfectly.
    – Matt Alexander
    Oct 1, 2021 at 11:33
  • This one is not only the only working solution for me, but it even displays a nice Qr code (yes in command line!) that you can scan on your mobile to quickly add the wifi! Thanks a lot!
    – tobiasBora
    Jan 3, 2022 at 8:17
4

This will give you the password for your current connection.

sudo grep psk= /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/*

Or

sudo grep psk= /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/(YOUR-SSID)
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2

here is a one liner to make @David Foerster answer more useful

MYCWD=`pwd`; cd /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/ ; sudo grep -e '^psk=' * | less ; cd $MYCWD
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1

you can just type ls /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/ and it will show the name of your network, so just press the up arrow on keyboard and type the name of your connections and change ls to sudo cat

the password will be psk

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Using nmcli on Ubuntu 18.04, replace WIFINAME with the wireless network name (ssid):

nmcli --show-secrets connection show WIFINAME | grep 802-11-wireless-security.psk:

show-password does not work for me

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Going further with MRTgang second command to remove "psk=" leaving only the password

sudo grep -hr '^psk=' /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/ | sed 's|psk=||g'
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