How to Find A Password With Inspect Element

Password recovery can be a challenging task if you’ve forgotten the password or the account is hacked by someone else. In such cases, the Inspect Element technique could be quite handy, but it needs some technical knowledge to execute. Inspect Element is a feature in modern web browsers that allows you to inspect the web page source code and make changes temporarily to the webpage. Although it is not a recommended method, it can successfully recover your password for various online accounts.

Video Tutorial:

The Challenge of Finding A Password

Forgetting your password can be a major concern, especially if that password is for your bank account, email account or social media account. More often, when you forget your password, the service provider prompts you to either reset the password or recover it through an SMS or email. However, some services do not offer such recovery options. In these scenarios, Inspect Element is the ultimate solution to help users recover their lost passwords.

Things You Need to Prepare

Before proceeding with the recovery of the password with Inspect Element, certain things must be in your hands:

  • A computer or a laptop with a web browser such as Chrome, Mozilla Firefox or Edge
  • An active internet connection
  • The login credentials of the account you want to recover the password for

Method 1: With the Inspect Element feature in the Chrome browser

Inspect Element is a default feature that comes with most modern web browsers, including Google Chrome. Here’s how you can recover your password with this feature on Chrome:

  1. Open Google Chrome on your computer.
  2. Navigate to the website of the account you want to recover the password for.
  3. Next, right-click anywhere on the login page and select “Inspect” from the drop-down menu.
  4. You will now see the source code of the webpage on the right side of your screen. Use Ctrl+F to open the search box and search for the “password” key phrase. You will find the password value on this line.
  5. Right-click on the “type=password” line and select “Edit as HTML.”
  6. Change the “password” phrase to “text” and hit Enter. This will make the password visible on the screen instead of being masked.
  7. Note down the password on a paper or copy it to the clipboard and log in to the account.

Method 2: Searching with Network Features in the Browser

This method enables you to view the password with the network feature of your browser. It is useful when the password is stored as a cookie. Follow these steps to view your password with this method:

  1. Open the browser on your computer.
  2. Login to the account you want to recover the password for.
  3. Right-click anywhere and select “Inspect Element”.
  4. Click on the “Network” tab on the top navigation bar of the Development panel.
  5. Then, click on “Documents” in the left sidebar of the window, from the “All”

    6. option available at the top of the window.

  6. You will see an option named “password”. Right-click on it and select “Copy link address”.
  7. Open a new tab in the browser and paste the link address into the address bar, and hit enter.
  8. The password will be displayed on this page.

Method 3: Using Browser Extensions

Several browser extensions are available to recover passwords. One such extension that can be used with Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and other browsers is “IE tab”. Here’s how you can use this extension to recover your password:

  1. Install the “IE Tab” extension from the chrome web store or other browser’s extension store you are using.
  2. Open the browser and install the extension.
  3. Navigate to the login page of the account, and now click on the IE Tab icon next to the address bar.
  4. The login page will now open using the IE engine. You can access the password by clicking the “show password” option or changing the password field from “password” to “text” using the Inspect Element feature and viewing the password.
  5. Note the password down on paper or copy the password, and use it to log in to the account.

Why Can’t I Find A Password?

  • If you lack the requisite technical skills or experience, you might find it challenging to recover your password with Inspect Element.
  • If the account’s label settings are activated, inspect element may not display the password.
  • If encryption algorithms such as “bcrypt” are in use, you might not be able to recover the password.

FAQs

Q: Is it Illegal to Recover Password with Inspect Element?

A: No, it is not illegal. But accessing someone else’s account without their consent is illegal.

Q: Can I use the Inspect Element feature with any browser?

A: Yes, Inspect Element is a default feature that comes with most modern web browsers, including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Microsoft Edge.

Q: Can I lose my account if the service provider finds out that I recovered my password with Inspect Element?

A: Yes, it can happen. Accessing someone’s account without their consent is a violation of the terms of service of most websites. If the service provider becomes aware of it, they may cancel your account.

Q: What if the password is encrypted?

A: If encryption algorithms such as bcrypt are in use, you might not be able to recover the password with the Inspect Element method.

Q: Can Inspect Element do unexpected changes to my account?

A: No. The changes made using the Inspect Element feature will only appear on your device, not on the server-side.