How to Recover Saved Passwords in Windows Live Mail

In this article, you’ll learn where Windows Live Mail stores your email login passwords, how they are protected, and how you can easily recover them.

Windows Live Mail Password Secrets

Windows Live Mail saves all your email login passwords at following location

[Windows Vista/7/8/10]
C:\Users\[user_name]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail\[random_name].oeaccount

[Windows XP/2003] 
C:\Documents and Settings\[user_name]\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail\[random_name].oeaccount

This account file (.oeaccount) is stored in XML format. It contains all details including email address, server, username & password for different protocol types (POP3, IMAP, SMTP) as shown below,

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16" ?>

<MessageAccount>
<Account_Name type="SZ">Gmail (xensoftware)</Account_Name>
<Connection_Type type="DWORD">00000003</Connection_Type>
<IMAP_Server type="SZ">imap.gmail.com</IMAP_Server>
<IMAP_User_Name type="SZ">xensoftware</IMAP_User_Name>
<IMAP_Password2 type="BINARY">...</IMAP_Password2>
<IMAP_Port type="DWORD">000003e1</IMAP_Port>
<SMTP_Server type="SZ">smtp.gmail.com</SMTP_Server>
<SMTP_User_Name type="SZ">xensoftware</SMTP_User_Name>
<SMTP_Password2 type="BINARY">...</SMTP_Password2>
<SMTP_Port type="DWORD">000001d1</SMTP_Port>
<SMTP_Email_Address type="SZ">xensoftware@gmail.com</SMTP_Email_Address>
</MessageAccount>

Password is stored in fields like POP3_Password2, IMAP_Password2, SMTP_Password2 etc and encrypted using Windows DPAPI (Data Protection API) functions.

Also static salt data is used for password encryption as additional security measure.

Salt data is stored in registry value “Salt” at below location

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail

How to Decrypt Windows Live Mail Passwords

Here is sample C++ program to decrypt Windows Live Mail password programmatically.

void DecryptPassword(char *passData, int passLen, char *strPassword, int length)
{
	DATA_BLOB DataPassword;
	DATA_BLOB DataOutput;
        DATA_BLOB OptionalEntropy;

	OptionalEntropy.pbData = (BYTE *)byteSalt;
	OptionalEntropy.cbData = dwSaltDataSize;
	
	DataPassword.cbData = passLen;
	DataPassword.pbData = (BYTE *) passData;

	if( CryptUnprotectData(&DataPassword, NULL, &OptionalEntropy, 0, 0, 0, &DataOutput) == FALSE )
	{
		printf("CryptUnprotectData failed with error 0x%.8x", GetLastError());
		return;
	}

        DataOut.pbData[DataOut.cbData] = 0;

	//convert password to ascii
	WideCharToMultiByte(CP_ACP, 0, (LPCWSTR)DataOut.pbData, DataOut.cbData / 2, strPassword, length, NULL, NULL);
		
	printf("Decrypted Password is %s ", strPassword);

}

How to Recover Windows Live Mail Passwords Automatically

Now you can easily recover all your forgotten mail login passwords from Windows Live Mail without any technical knowledge.

With just one click, XenArmor Email Password Recovery Pro can recover all your saved Windows Live Mail passwords in seconds.

Follow these simple steps,

1. Download & install the software from here
2. Click on “Recover Passwords”
3. Instantly see all your saved email passwords

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