


How to Find Your IP Address








So now, there's IPv6, which is 128-bit, with eight groups of four hexadecimal digits (numbers and lower-case letters mixed), all separated by a colon (for example: 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334). That offers a lot more than 4 billion addresses. The actual number is a 34 with 37 zeros after it (or 2 to the 128th power), which is technically 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,455. That's a lot of addresses.

That's all good to know, but how do you find your IP address?

Find Your Internet/Public IP Address



The simplest way to check your router's public IP address is to search "what is my IP?" on a search engine.

Google: What is my IP?

With Google, that's all you see. There are plenty of sites out there that will show you the exact same thing. They see it simply because by visiting the site, your router has made a request, and thus revealed the IP address. Sites like and IPLocation all go farther, showing off the names of your ISP, your city, and even maps.

The GeoIP info is far from foolproof. Generally, you're going to get an approximation of location—where the provider is, not the actual computer. In visiting those sites, I was told I was in Ithaca, New York...and Syracuse, New York. One gave a latitude/longitude that put me in North Carolina (which could be where my ISP has a data center, for all I know). Be sure to log out of your VPN service, too. Getting a real address for the public IP address usually requires a search warrant taken to the ISP.

Find Your Internal IP Address




So how do you find it? In Windows it requires the command prompt. Search for "cmd" (without the quotes) using Windows search. Click to get the Command Line. In the resulting pop-up box, type "ipconfig" (no quote marks) then return.

Command Line using IPCONFIG

What is revealed is more than just the IP address: you'll see the IPv4 address (and IPv6 if supported), the subnet mask, plus the Default Gateway (that's your router). Look above that row of data in the middle, and it shows the type of connection: "Wireless LAN adapter Wi-Fi." If I was using a wired connection it would have information under "Ethernet adapter."

On the Mac, go to the System Preferences, select Network, and it should be right there. Click the connection type on the left to see the IPs for each type. You may need to click the TCP/IP tab at the top with slightly older versions. Optionally, go full geek and open the Terminal and type "ipconfig" just like on Windows.

On an iOS/iPadOS, go into Settings > Wi-Fi, and click the "i" in a circle next to the network you're on. The IP address, subnet, and router (gateway) will all be there under both an IPv4 and IPv6 section, as seen below.

IP Address in iOS

If you need the IP address of other devices on your network, go into the router. How you access your router depends on the brand and the software it runs. In general, you should be able to type the router's gateway IP address into a web browser on the same network to access it. From there, you need to navigate to something like "attached devices." Then you get a full list of all the devices currently (or recently) attached to the network—and that list includes the IP address assigned to each device.

If you're lucky, you've got a modern router (or set of routers, like a mesh system) that can be controlled with mobile apps. The app may make it a lot easier to find the IP address(es) you want. Click the icon next to each device to show the IP address and more info for each.

About Eric Griffith