Unmasking the password field in web pages is a handy technique that every netizen should know. You can use it to remember an auto-filled password you’ve already forgotten. Or you want to make sure you’ve entered the password correctly, as it’s annoying to repeatedly enter a long one because of typos.

With a few clicks and some tinkering, here’s how you can expose passwords that are hidden behind dots or asterisks even without administrator privileges.

How to view hidden saved passwords on browsers

Visit the login portal or page with the password field in which the password has been automatically filled into but is obscured by dots or asterisks. Right-click on the password field and select Inspect in the context menu.

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The developer tools should appear as a side/bottom panel (or popup window) displaying the source code of the page. You should also see a snippet of the code already highlighted/selected.

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Double-click the part that says type=”password” in the highlighted code, change it to type=”text”, then press Enter.

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Back at the web page, the password field should now display the password in clear text. When your done copying the password, refresh the page to undo the change you did to the HTML code.

The steps above should work for Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Mozilla Firefox.

If you can’t find the type=”password” in the HTML source code, use the search bar at the Elements tab (Inspector tab in Firefox) of the developer tools. Press Ctrl+F to move and focus your text cursor into the search bar, and then enter “password” (including the quotation marks).

Other methods to view hidden passwords in Firefox, Chrome, Microsoft Edge

There’s an even easier method to unmask password fields, provided the web page designer added the feature. Simply check the “Show Password” or any similarly named checkbox near the password field. Alternatively, an eye icon may also be available that you can use to toggle password visibility.

If neither method above works in revealing the password, try going to the built-in password manager of your browser to view all saved passwords.

  • In Chrome, enter chrome://settings/passwords at the address bar.
  • In Edge, enter edge://settings/passwords instead.
  • For Firefox, it’s about:logins.

When nothing works, you can always do a password reset. Or save yourself from the hassle of remembering and typing long passwords by using a credible password manager.

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