Mac Treat #134: Use Keychain to Recover Forgotten Passwords

We have three different Airport wifi networks at our headquarters in Waitsfield, Vermont. Recently I was in the office by myself and couldn’t remember the very complicated password for our secure network, which I needed to access on my iPad. I almost gave up, but then remembered that I had previously accessed the network with my MacBook Pro. Unfortunately, I had only entered the password once and then clicked “Remember Password”, so I still had no clue what the password was.

But slowly, like an iceberg melting in the Indian Ocean, the realization dawned on me: Keychain Access. This utility stores all of the passwords you tell your Mac to remember. I grabbed my MacBook Pro, launched Keychain Access, recovered the password and set up my iPad. Here’s how you can do this:

In Spotlight, search for “Keychain Access”, or navigate to Applications folder > Utilities > Keychain Access. You’ll see your different keychains organized here, such as Login, PrivateEncryptedData, System, or System Roots.

To reveal the password to a wireless network you’ve logged into in the past, double click the name of the network under “System.” Under the attributes tab, select the “Show password” checkbox. Now enter your keychain password, which is usually the same password you use to log into your Mac or install new software. To display the password for the keychain item, click Allow. The password will be displayed next to the “Show password” checkbox.

There you go! I need a Keychain Access for my brain.