The University of Massachusetts Amherst
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Operating System

How To Find Your Device’s MAC/Physical Address

The Physical address of a device is an unchanging number/letter combination which identifies your device on a network. It is also referred to as a Media Access Control Address (MAC Address). You may need it if you’re having issues with the campus network and UMass IT wants to see if the network itself is the problem.

To find the MAC/Physical address on a Windows 10 device:

Right click on the Start button to make a menu appear:

windows-key-x-menu

Select Command Prompt from the menu.

In the window that appears, type “ipconfig /all” without the quotes:

cmd

The resulting text displays information about the parts in your computer which communicate with the network. You’ll want to find the one that says “WLAN adapter” and look under that heading for the Physical Address:

WLAN

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To Find the MAC Address of a Apple/Macintosh computer:

Click the apple menu in the top left of the screen and click System Preferences:

system-preferences-hotkey

In the window that appears, click “Network”:

preferences_overview

Highlight WiFi on the left-hand side and click advanced:

wifiadvanced

Navigate to the Hardware tab to find your MAC address:

hardware

To Find the MAC address of an iPhone:

Use the Settings app, go to General>About and the MAC Address is listed as “WiFi Address”:

iphoneMAC

To find the MAC address of an Android device:

The location of the MAC address on an android device is unique to the device, but almost all versions will show it if you navigate to Settings>Wireless and Network; the MAC address will be listed on the same page or in the Advanced section:

Find-MAC-Address

You may also be able to find the MAC address in the “About Phone” section of the setting menu:

wifi-mac-address-android