How to find a Wi-Fi network password on your device

• Apple OS X has Keychain Access tool that stores passwords
• Windows Control Panel lets you look up saved passwords
• Microsoft has added email syncing for Macs

Question: I have a Wi-Fi network's password saved on my computer. How do I look it up so I can connect my phone to the same network?

Answer: Computers, phones, tablets and other gadgets that can connect to a Wi-Fi network will usually remember its password for you. assuming it's not one you have to enter in a form on a "captive portal" Web login.

But many of these devices won't cough up that password later on so you can enter it on another device. If you want to avoid looking for a tiny hand-lettered sign with a wireless password on it somewhere in your local cafe, or asking a barista or bartender for the details, you'd best have connected to that network earlier on a laptop.

This job is easier in Apple's OS X. Its Keychain Access tool, lurking in the Utilities sub-folder of your Applications folder, stores all of the passwords your Mac can save — not just for Wi-Fi signals but for e-mail accounts, Web pages, social-media networks and other online resources.

Open this app, make sure "All Items" in the left-hand column is selected, and type a Wi-Fi network's name into the search box at the top right. Double-click its entry, click the "Show password" checkbox, and type your admin password to see the login OS X had saved earlier.

In Windows, you can see the password for the network you're using right now with a detour through the Control Panel.

Open it, click the "View network status and tasks" heading, click the Wi-Fi connection listed at the right, click the "Wireless Properties" button in the window that opens, click the "Security" tab in the window that opens after that, and then click the "Show characters" checkbox.

Looking up a saved password for a network you're not on at the moment requires add-on software. It may also entail a certain amount of digital daring: The frequently-recommended app I tried, NirSoft's free WirelessKey View, got flagged by Microsoft's Windows Defender app as malware.

Microsoft's malware encyclopedia offers a more nuanced description, calling this app a "hacking tool." Well, yes, that's kind of the point: freelance developer Nir Sofer's free program unearths passwords Windows had stashed out of sight.

I downloaded and ran WirelessKey View (it's one of the rare Windows apps to not require running an installer first), and it almost instantly provided a list of the Wi-Fi passwords saved on my Windows 8 ThinkPad.

You get no such help if you're trying to view a Wi-Fi password saved on a mobile device. Apple's iOS doesn't provide access to its database of stored passwords unless you jailbreak an iPhone or iPad. In Google's Android, you first have to "root" the phone — not as technically challenging as an iOS jailbreak, but still not a quick chore for the uninitiated. Windows Phone doesn't let you see saved passwords either.

Tip: Sync your Outlook.com or Hotmail e-mail to your Mac (or phone)

Thursday, Microsoft added a sorely-overdue option to its free Web-mail services: the ability to sync them to the e-mail programs on Macs, on many phones and on other systems that don't run its proprietary Exchange ActiveSync.

Now, Microsoft's promising Outlook.com and its earlier Hotmail support an Internet standard called IMAP, short for Internet Message Access Protocol. This synchronizes every message in your account — not just in the inbox, but those in other folders, plus drafts and sent messages — as well as whether you've read, replied to, or forwarded them. It even remembers if you've flagged individual e-mails for follow-up.

In fewer words, IMAP is what you want to use if you check your mail on more than one device. The older, simpler Post Office Protocol Microsoft had offered to Macs before works for downloading messages but tracks little beyond that — it won't tell you that you answered an e-mail earlier on another machine, much less let you see the reply you'd sent.

But because many mail programs assume that Hotmail and Outlook.com accounts only allow "POP" or "EAS" offline access, you may have to trick yours into allowing an IMAP setup. For example, a tech-support note posted by Microsoft suggests entering a phony e-mail address into OS X's Mail, plugging in the right mail-server info, then correcting the address.

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Rob Pegoraro is a tech writer based out of Washington, D.C. To submit a tech question, e-mail Rob at rob@robpegoraro.com. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/robpegoraro.