Overview

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Below you will find instructions showing how to find the MAC address of a device. You may need to find the MAC address of your device to register your wired device to connect to a campus workstation, register a device without a web browsers to connect to ResNet, and aid in identifying your device for troubleshooting purposes.

On this page:

• Computers
  • Windows
  • Mac
  • Linux/Unix
  • Chromebook
• Mobile Devices
  • iPhone/iPad (iOS)
  • Android

Critical Concepts

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• A MAC (Media Access Control) address, is a sequence of values that serves as a unique identifier for your device's network adapter. Often the address is written in value pairs separated by colons, hyphens, or other characters.
• The general format is as follows, with each X replaced by a number 0-9 or letter A-F: XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX
• You may also hear MAC addresses be referred to as a hardware address, physical address, WiFi address, or Ethernet address
• Every device that connects to a network has a unique MAC address
• If your devices has multiple methods to connect to the network, such as a wired Ethernet adapter and a wireless adapter, each adapter has its own MAC address.

Steps to Take

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Computers

Windows

1. Click on the Start Menu at the bottom left corner of your screen or press the Windows key
2. In the search box, type cmd
3. Press ENTER. This should open a window that says "Command Prompt"
4. In the command prompt, type getmac -v, then press ENTER
5. This should print out information about the various network adapters on your device. You will find your MAC address under the Physical Address column in the relevant adapter's row (e.g. Wi-Fi, Ethernet)

Mac

1. On top menu bar, click on Apple Icon > System Settings...
2. Select the Network tab on the left
3. Select the type of network adapter you are looking for, then continue with the corresponding steps:
   • Wireless
     1. Select WiFi button
     2. Click Advanced... in the bottom right corner
     3. On the next screen, look for Wi-Fi MAC Address at the bottom. This is the MAC address for your wireless adapter
   • Ethernet (Wired)
     1. Select Ethernet button
     2. Click Details... in the top right corner
     3. Click Hardware tab. Here you will see the MAC address for your wired Ethernet adapter

Linux/Unix

1. Open your terminal application
2. In the terminal, type ip link show, then press ENTER
3. Your MAC address should show up to the right of "link/ether" under the relevant adapter
   Note: Some older distributions may not have the ip command. In this case, try ifconfig -a instead. If neither of these work, consult your user manual

Chromebook

1. In the bottom right, click on the time
2. Click the Wi-Fi network icon
3. Click on the Network Information (i) button in the top right of the box
4. You should see a Wi-Fi address listed in a small drop-down box. This is the MAC address for your wireless network adapter.

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Mobile Devices

Note: Mobile devices often implement a privacy feature known as MAC randomization. In this case, your MAC address will be found in the configuration for the specific network you are connecting to. When reporting an issue, we recommend turning this feature off so that we can see all relevant information under the same device.

iPhone/iPad (iOS)

1. Select Settings from your home screen
2. Go to General > About
3. Scroll down and look for the Wi-Fi Address. This is your device's MAC address for wireless network adapter.

Android

Settings menus can vary across different Android devices. For the majority of cases, these steps should work:

1. Select Settings from the application menu
2. Go to About Device > Status
3. Scroll down and look for the Wi-Fi Address. This is your device's MAC address for wireless network adapter.