How to Recover Saved Passwords in Windows Live Mail
This research article exposes the password secrets of Windows Live Mail – one of the popular Email clients.
Here we show you all interesting details including where all your mail passwords are stored, how it is stored and how to recover it automatically.
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
Here is simple way to recover all the forgotten email passwords from Windows Live Mail without worrying about where it is stored and how to decrypt it.
You can use our Email Password Recovery Pro software to instantly & easily recover all your email passwords from Windows Live Mail as shown in video below,
Here are the simple steps to recover all your saved passwords,
- Step 1: Download & Install Email Password Recovery Pro software from here
- Step 2: Next launch the software on your computer
- Step 3: It will automatically discover, decrypt and display all the Windows Live Mail mail passwords as shown below
For more details, please refer to Online User Guide
Hope this article has helped you to understand password secrets of Windows Live Mail. Please comment below on what do you think or if you have any queries.
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