How to find a MAC address

Updated: 03/13/2021 by Computer Hope
Mac address

Below are the steps to find the MAC address for your network devices.

Note

Because of the potential of tracking wireless devices using a MAC address, many manufacturers (e.g., Apple, Google, and Microsoft) generate random MAC addresses.

Finding a MAC address in Microsoft Windows

  1. Press the Windows key, type Control Panel, and press Enter.
  2. Under the Network and Internet section, select View network status and tasks.
  3. On the left side of the screen, select Change adapter settings.
  4. Right-click your computer icon.
  5. Select Status from the drop-down menu, then click the Details button.
  6. Your MAC address appears in the new window.
Tip

You can also follow the steps below to view the MAC address from the command line.

Finding the MAC from MS-DOS or Windows command line

  1. Open the Windows command prompt.
  1. Type ipconfig /all and press Enter.
  2. This command lists all your computer adapters, and the MAC address is the Physical address in this list (shown below).
Ethernet adapter Ethernet:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : hsd1.ut.comcast.net
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcom NetLink (TM) Gigabit Ethernet
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : D4-BE-D8-9D-47-9A
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
IPv6 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 2601:681:4300:c5c0::f4b3(Preferred)

Finding a MAC address in Linux

If you are running Linux and Unix or a variant, you can determine the MAC address or hardware address using the ifconfig command. After running "ifconfig" from the command line, you get output similar to the example below. In the output below, the MAC address is the hardware address (HWaddr), as highlighted below.

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 09:00:12:90:e3:e5 
          inet addr:192.168.1.29 Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::a00:27ff:fe70:e3f5/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:54071 errors:1 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:48515 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:22009423 (20.9 MiB)  TX bytes:25690847 (24.5 MiB)
          Interrupt:10 Base address:0xd020 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:83 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:83 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:7766 (7.5 KiB)  TX bytes:7766 (7.5 KiB)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 58:a2:c2:93:27:36 
          inet addr:192.168.1.64  Bcast:192.168.2.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::6aa3:c4ff:fe93:4746/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:436968 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:364103 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:115886055 (110.5 MiB)  TX bytes:83286188 (79.4 MiB)

Finding a MAC address in an Apple computer

  1. Open the Apple Menu.
  2. Click System Preferences.
  3. Select Network.
  4. Click the adapter (if wireless, select Airport).
  5. Click Advanced.
  6. At the bottom, the MAC address is listed as the Airport ID or MAC ID is listed.

Finding a MAC address in an Apple iPhone and iPad

  1. Tap Settings.
  2. Tap General.
  3. Tap About.
  4. The MAC address is listed as WiFi Address.

Finding a MAC address in an Android smartphone and tablet

  1. Tap Apps
  2. Tap Settings.
Note

Make sure to tap "Settings" and not "Google Settings."

  1. Scroll down and tap About, About Tablet, or About device.
  2. Tap Status.
  3. The MAC address is listed as the WiFi MAC address.

Finding a MAC address in a router

A MAC address can also be viewed for any device connected to your network. Accessing your router for this information is easier than trying to find the address on each device.

To find the MAC addresses from a router, access your router setup or console and view the list of devices connected to the network.