How to Find Your MAC Address in Windows 11 and 10 (Every Way, Plus Random and Changed Addresses)

To find your MAC address in Windows 11, open Settings, Network & internet, select Wi-Fi or Ethernet, then Hardware properties (on the Ethernet page, select the connection itself). The MAC address is listed as Physical address (MAC), written as six pairs of characters such as 3C-52-82-1A-7F-09. From the command line, run getmac /v or ipconfig /all in Command Prompt, or Get-NetAdapter in PowerShell, to see the address of every adapter at once. If Windows is using a random hardware address for a Wi-Fi network, the address shown for that connection is the random one. That is the one your router sees, and it differs from the address printed on the device.

Ethan was setting up parental controls on the family router, and the router's app wanted each child's laptop by its MAC address. He found one address on a sticker under his son's laptop, typed it in, and the controls did nothing. He called Jake, who asked Ethan to open Settings on the laptop and read out the Wi-Fi hardware properties. The address there was completely different from the sticker, because Windows was using a random hardware address on the home network. Jake explained why, Ethan turned random addresses off for the home network only, and the parental controls started working within a minute. This page shows every way to find a MAC address in Windows 11 and 10, explains physical and random addresses, how to find the MAC of other devices on your network, and when and how to change a MAC address.

What a MAC address is

A MAC address, short for Media Access Control address and also called a physical address or hardware address, is an identifier assigned to a network adapter. Every Wi-Fi adapter, Ethernet port and Bluetooth radio has one, set by its manufacturer, and devices on the same local network use these addresses to deliver data to each other. Your router knows each device in your home by its MAC address.

A MAC address is 48 bits long and written as six pairs of hexadecimal characters, the digits 0 to 9 and letters A to F. Windows separates the pairs with hyphens, as in 3C-52-82-1A-7F-09; routers, phones, Macs and Linux usually use colons, as in 3c:52:82:1a:7f:09. Both are the same address; letter case and separators do not matter. The first three pairs usually identify the manufacturer, a block called the OUI, and the last three identify the individual adapter.

A MAC address works only on your local network, the one your router manages. When your traffic goes out to the internet, the router uses its own addresses, and websites never see your PC's MAC address. That is a common misunderstanding: a MAC address does not identify you online. It identifies your device to your router, to the other devices at home, and to any public network you join, such as a hotel's Wi-Fi.

People need their MAC address for a handful of practical jobs: parental controls and device schedules on routers, reserving a fixed IP address for a device, allowing a device on a network that filters by MAC address, registering a device with a school or office network, or troubleshooting which device is which in a router's list. Each of these needs the address the network actually sees, which is why the random address question below matters so much.

Find your MAC address in Settings

The Settings app shows the MAC address for each connection. In Windows 11:

1. Open Settings with Windows + I and select Network & internet.
2. For Wi-Fi, select Wi-Fi, then Hardware properties. For a wired connection, select Ethernet, then select the connection.
3. Find Physical address (MAC) near the bottom of the list. Select Copy to copy all the properties, including the address, to paste elsewhere.

To see every adapter at once, select Advanced network settings on the Network & internet page, then Hardware and connection properties. It lists each adapter, including Wi-Fi, Ethernet, Bluetooth and virtual adapters, with its physical address, which is handy when you are not sure which one you need.

In Windows 10, open Settings, Network & Internet, select Wi-Fi or Ethernet, select the connected network, and scroll to Properties, where the physical address is listed. The Status page's View your network properties link shows all adapters, like Windows 11's hardware and connection properties page.

The address Settings shows for a Wi-Fi connection is the one in use on that network. If random hardware addresses are on, that is the random address, which is exactly what your router or a hotel network sees. Ethan's mistake was using the sticker's address; the Settings address was the right one all along.

Find your MAC address with Command Prompt

Two commands show MAC addresses in Command Prompt or Terminal, and neither needs administrator rights.

getmac /v lists every adapter with its connection name, adapter name and physical address in a neat table. Adapters that are not connected show Media disconnected instead of a transport name, which helps you pick the active one. Add /fo list for a list layout that is easier to read in a narrow window.

ipconfig /all shows full details for every adapter, including Physical Address, the IP address, the router's address and DNS servers. Look for the section titled Wireless LAN adapter Wi-Fi or Ethernet adapter Ethernet. Because it shows the IP address too, ipconfig /all is the best command when you need both, for example to set up a reservation on a router. Our guide to finding your IP address explains the rest of its output.

To find the MAC address of just the Wi-Fi adapter, netsh wlan show interfaces shows the current wireless connection, including its Physical address, along with signal strength and the network name. You may see an older command, wmic nic get name, macaddress, in guides; WMIC is deprecated and is being removed from Windows 11, so it may not exist on newer PCs. Use getmac or PowerShell instead.

Find your MAC address with PowerShell

PowerShell's Get-NetAdapter command lists every network adapter with its Name, InterfaceDescription, Status, MacAddress and LinkSpeed. The Status column shows Up for connected adapters and Disconnected or Disabled for others, so the active adapter is easy to spot.

To show just names and addresses, run Get-NetAdapter | Select-Object Name, InterfaceDescription, MacAddress, Status. To show only connected adapters, add a filter: Get-NetAdapter | Where-Object Status -eq 'Up' | Select-Object Name, MacAddress. To include hidden adapters, such as some virtual ones, add -IncludeHidden after Get-NetAdapter.

PowerShell is the best choice in scripts, for example to collect the MAC addresses of PCs in an office into a spreadsheet. Get-NetAdapter | Select-Object Name, MacAddress | Export-Csv macs.csv -NoTypeInformation saves the list to a file. For a remote PC on a domain, Get-NetAdapter -CimSession PCNAME queries another computer, with the right permissions.

Other places Windows shows the MAC address

System Information. Press Windows + R, run msinfo32, and open Components, Network, Adapter. Each adapter is listed with its MAC address and many other details. This is useful when making a full record of a PC's hardware.

Control Panel. Open Control Panel, Network and Sharing Center, select the connection name next to Connections, then Details. The Physical Address is listed. In Windows 11, Control Panel still has this window, though Settings is quicker.

Device Manager. Device Manager does not show the MAC address directly for most adapters, but the adapter's Properties, Advanced tab often has a Network Address setting, which shows a value only if someone has changed the MAC address, as described below.

The router. Your router's app or web page lists connected devices with their MAC addresses and IP addresses, usually under a name like Connected devices, Clients or DHCP leases. This is the most reliable place to see the address the network actually uses, since it is what the router recorded.

The label. Laptops, network cards and routers often have a sticker with the MAC address, sometimes labeled MAC, LAN MAC or WLAN MAC. It shows the adapter's built-in address, which may not be the one in use, as Ethan learned.

Random hardware addresses: why your MAC address looks different

Windows 11 and 10 can use a random hardware address for Wi-Fi networks instead of the adapter's built-in address. Public networks, shops and other places can track devices by MAC address as people move around, so a random address that changes per network, or daily, protects your privacy. The feature only applies to Wi-Fi, not Ethernet.

There are two settings. In Settings, Network & internet, Wi-Fi, the Random hardware addresses switch turns the feature on for all networks by default. For a single network, open its properties, either for the connected network or under Manage known networks, and set Random hardware address to Off, On or Change daily. On keeps one random address for that network, while Change daily generates a new one every day.

Random addresses are easy to recognize. The second character of a random MAC address is always 2, 6, A or E, as in A6-1F-... or 3E-.., because those values mark the address as locally assigned rather than set by the manufacturer. If the address in Settings starts with such a pair and does not match the sticker, it is random.

For your home network, where you want the router to recognize your devices for parental controls, reservations or device schedules, set the random hardware address to Off or On for that network only, keeping the global switch on for other networks. That is what Jake did on Ethan's son's laptop. For public networks, keep it on; avoid Change daily for hotels and other places with login pages, since a changing address can make the portal forget you, as covered in our guide to Wi-Fi login pages that will not show.

Which MAC address do you need?

A typical laptop lists several adapters, each with its own MAC address, and picking the wrong one is the second most common mistake after the sticker problem. Use the address of the adapter you are connected with, for the network you are setting up.

When a laptop is docked, the wired connection often goes through the dock's own Ethernet adapter, with its own MAC address, not the laptop's built-in port. If a router reservation works only when undocked, that is why: the dock and the laptop appear as two different devices. Some business laptops can pass their own MAC address through the dock, a feature called MAC address pass-through, set in the PC's firmware settings.

Virtual machines, VPNs and their MAC addresses

Virtual adapters have MAC addresses too, generated by the software that creates them. If you use Hyper-V, VirtualBox, VMware, WSL or a VPN, Settings and getmac show extra adapters with names like vEthernet, VirtualBox Host-Only Network or the VPN's name. Their addresses are not your physical connection and should not be used for router settings.

Each virtual machine also has its own virtual network adapter with a generated MAC address, which the router sees as a separate device when the VM is bridged to your network. VirtualBox, VMware and Hyper-V let you view and change a VM's MAC address in its network settings, and can generate a new one with a button. When you clone a virtual machine, make sure the clone gets a new address; two VMs with the same MAC address on one network cause confusing, intermittent connection problems.

VPN adapters usually have a MAC address that never leaves your PC, since the VPN carries traffic over your real connection. If a VPN problem leaves you without internet, our guide to a VPN connected with no internet covers it; the VPN adapter's MAC address is almost never the cause.

The Bluetooth address

Bluetooth radios have their own 48-bit address, written like a MAC address, used when pairing devices. You rarely need it, but some device setups, such as certain controllers or developer tools, ask for it. In Device Manager, expand Bluetooth, open your Bluetooth adapter's Properties, and look on the Advanced tab for the Address. Settings' Hardware and connection properties also lists the Bluetooth Network Connection adapter with an address.

The Bluetooth address is separate from the Wi-Fi MAC address, even when both radios are on one chip, and random hardware addresses for Wi-Fi do not affect it. Bluetooth has its own privacy features that use changing addresses during discovery, which is why a phone may show different addresses in some scanning apps.

Find the MAC address of other devices on your network

Sometimes you need the MAC address of a printer, TV, console or phone, not the PC. The router is the easiest place: its connected devices list shows names, IP addresses and MAC addresses for everything on the network. If a device has no name, its IP address and the manufacturer part of the MAC address usually identify it.

From Windows, the arp -a command lists the IP and MAC addresses of devices your PC has recently communicated with on the local network. To find a specific device, ping its IP address first with ping 192.168.1.50, replacing the address, then run arp -a and look for that IP. The physical address next to it is the device's MAC.

Most devices also show their own MAC address in their settings: on phones, usually under About or Wi-Fi details, again with a random address per network by default on modern Android and iPhone; on TVs and consoles, under network status; on printers, on a network configuration page they can print. Free MAC vendor lookup sites can tell you the manufacturer from the first three pairs, which helps identify unknown devices; random addresses do not have a manufacturer, so the lookup will find nothing for them.

Using your MAC address on the router: reservations, controls and filtering

Most people look up a MAC address to type it into a router, and three router features account for nearly all of it. The exact menus differ by brand, but the ideas are the same everywhere.

DHCP reservation, sometimes called a static lease or address reservation, tells the router to always give the same IP address to one device. You enter the device's MAC address and the IP address you want, usually in the router's LAN or DHCP settings. Printers, network storage, game consoles and anything you connect to by address benefit from it, since their address no longer changes after a restart. Many router apps let you select the device from the connected list instead of typing the address, which avoids typing mistakes.

Parental controls and schedules on routers, and in mesh Wi-Fi apps, identify each child's devices by MAC address, then apply bedtimes, content filters or pauses to those addresses. This is where random hardware addresses cause the most confusion, because a laptop or phone with a random address looks like a new device, escaping the rules. For family devices on your own network, set the random address to Off or On for the home network, so the address stays the same, and assign the device to the right person in the router's app.

MAC filtering, an allow list or block list of addresses, is offered by many routers. An allow list stops unknown devices from connecting even if they know the password. It sounds strong but is weak in practice, since anyone nearby can see allowed addresses and copy one. It also creates work every time a new device or a random address appears. Most home networks are better served by WPA2 or WPA3 with a strong password and a separate guest network for visitors.

Whatever the feature, double-check the address on the device itself, in Settings or with getmac, rather than relying on a label or memory, and remember that a docked laptop and the same laptop on Wi-Fi are two different addresses to the router.

Wake-on-LAN: waking a PC by its MAC address

Wake-on-LAN lets you turn on a sleeping or switched-off PC over the network by sending a special message, called a magic packet, addressed to its MAC address. It is useful for reaching a home PC remotely, or for IT staff waking office PCs for overnight updates. You need the MAC address of the wired adapter, since Wake-on-LAN works most reliably over Ethernet.

To set it up, enable Wake-on-LAN in the PC's firmware settings if it has an option, then in Device Manager, open the Ethernet adapter's Properties. On the Power Management tab, check Allow this device to wake the computer and Only allow a magic packet to wake the computer, and on the Advanced tab, enable Wake on Magic Packet if listed. Then use a Wake-on-LAN app on another PC or phone on the same network, entering the PC's MAC address.

Waking from a full shutdown depends on the hardware, and Fast Startup can interfere on some PCs; waking from sleep is more dependable. Over the internet, Wake-on-LAN needs router support or a device on the home network that can send the packet, which many routers and network storage devices offer. If waking fails, the most common cause is using the Wi-Fi adapter's MAC address instead of the Ethernet one.

Change your MAC address in Windows 11 and 10

Windows can set a custom MAC address on many adapters, which is occasionally useful: to keep a router reservation when replacing a network card, to match an address registered with an internet provider, or for testing. Whether it works depends on the adapter's driver; many Ethernet adapters support it, while Wi-Fi support varies.

1. Right-click Start and open Device Manager.
2. Expand Network adapters, right-click your adapter and select Properties.
3. Open the Advanced tab and select Network Address or Locally Administered Address in the list. If neither exists, the driver does not support changing the address this way.
4. Select Value and type the new address as 12 characters without separators, such as 021A2B3C4D5E.
5. Select OK. The adapter restarts briefly. Check the new address in Settings or with getmac.

For Wi-Fi adapters, use an address whose second character is 2, 6, A or E, which marks it as locally assigned; many Wi-Fi drivers ignore other values. To go back to the built-in address, return to the same setting and choose Not Present.

In PowerShell, run as administrator, Set-NetAdapter -Name "Ethernet" -MacAddress "02-1A-2B-3C-4D-5E" does the same for adapters that support it, and Reset-NetAdapterAdvancedProperty -Name "Ethernet" -DisplayName "Network Address" restores the original. For Wi-Fi, the random hardware address setting is often the simpler way to get a different address without touching drivers at all.

Changing a MAC address is legal for your own devices, but using it to get around a network's rules, such as time limits on a paid network or a block placed by a network's owner, may break the network's terms. If you are doing this on Linux for security testing on your own lab network, our guide to changing a MAC address in Kali Linux covers the common errors there.

Change the MAC address in the registry

The Device Manager setting is stored in the registry, and for drivers that support the setting but do not show it in the Advanced tab, setting it in the registry can work. Back up the registry first.

The adapters are under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4d36e972-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}, in numbered subkeys such as 0001 and 0002. Open each and check DriverDesc until you find your adapter. In that subkey, create a string value named NetworkAddress and set it to the 12-character address without separators. Disable and re-enable the adapter, or restart, for the change to take effect. Delete the value to return to the built-in address.

If the address does not change after this, the driver does not support overriding the address, and no registry setting will make it. Updating the driver from the manufacturer's site sometimes adds support, especially for Ethernet adapters.

MAC address problems and fixes

The router does not recognize a device after setup. Check whether Windows uses a random hardware address for that network, and turn it off or set it to On for your home network. Then forget and reconnect the network, and update the router's entry to the address shown in Settings.

The MAC address keeps changing. The network's random hardware address is set to Change daily, or the global random setting applies new random addresses to new networks. Set the network to On or Off as you prefer.

The MAC address shows as all zeros or is missing. The adapter is disabled, disconnected or has a driver problem. Check Device Manager for a warning icon, re-enable the adapter, and reinstall the driver if needed; our guide to reinstalling drivers shows how.

The address change does not take effect. The driver does not support it, the value is in the wrong format, or for Wi-Fi, the second character is not 2, 6, A or E. Disable and re-enable the adapter after changing it.

Two devices with the same MAC address. Rare, but it happens with cloned virtual machines or addresses copied by hand. The network becomes unreliable for both. Give one of them a different address, or regenerate the virtual machine's address in its settings.

MAC filtering blocks a new device. If your router only allows listed MAC addresses, add the new device's address, using the random one if that is what it uses on your network. MAC filtering is weak security, since addresses are easy to copy, so a strong Wi-Fi password matters far more.

Registering a device with a school, office or internet provider

Some networks require devices to be registered by MAC address before they can connect: university residence halls, some offices, and occasionally internet providers that tie service to a specific device. For these, the address you register must be the one your device uses on that network.

For Wi-Fi registrations, open the network's properties in Settings, set the random hardware address to Off for that network, so Windows uses the built-in address, then read the address from Hardware properties and register it. If you prefer to keep a random address, set it to On, not Change daily, connect once so the address is generated, then register the address shown. Either way, the address must stay the same for the registration to keep working.

For wired registrations, register the address of the Ethernet adapter you actually plug in, which may be a USB adapter or dock rather than the laptop's own port. Game consoles and smart TVs that need registration show their address in their network settings. Some consoles offer an alternate MAC address setting for networks that require it; leave it blank or cleared unless the network administrator gives you a specific instruction, since a wrong value can block the console from connecting at all.

If an internet provider registered the MAC address of an old router or PC, the simplest fix is to call them with the new address. Changing your new device's MAC address to match the old one, as described above, also works where the driver allows it.

Reading a MAC address: vendor, local and multicast

The first three pairs of a built-in MAC address are the manufacturer's identifier, assigned by the IEEE, the standards body that manages MAC address blocks. Free vendor lookup sites and the IEEE's public registry turn those three pairs into a company name, such as the maker of the Wi-Fi chip, which may differ from the brand of the laptop. This is useful for identifying unknown devices in a router's list: an entry from a TV maker's block is probably the TV.

Two bits in the first pair have special meanings. One marks the address as locally administered, set by software rather than the manufacturer, which is why random and custom addresses have 2, 6, A or E as their second character. The other marks a multicast address, used to send to groups of devices; a device's own address never has it, which is why its second character is always even. You do not need to know the bits to use MAC addresses, but they explain why vendor lookups find nothing for random addresses and why Windows rejects some custom values.

MAC address vs IP address

Both identify a device on a network, but they work at different levels, and knowing the difference helps with router settings and troubleshooting.

A MAC address belongs to the network adapter, is used only on the local network, and normally stays the same, unless random addresses or a custom setting change it. An IP address is assigned by the network, usually by the router through DHCP, and is used to route data between networks, including across the internet. Your PC gets a new IP address on every network it joins, and possibly a different one each time it reconnects at home.

Routers link the two: they keep a list of which MAC address has which IP address. That is how a DHCP reservation works, telling the router to always give the same IP address to a particular MAC address, which is useful for printers, game consoles and home servers. It is also why changing a device's MAC address, or using a random one, makes the router treat it as a new device with a new IP address.

Why your IP address keeps changing at home

A common follow-up question is why a PC's IP address at home keeps changing, breaking printer shortcuts, port forwarding or game settings. Routers hand out IP addresses for a limited time, called a lease, and usually give the same device the same address again when it renews, recognizing it by its MAC address. If the MAC address changes, because of a random hardware address set to change daily or a new dock, the router sees a new device and may hand out a different IP address.

The fix has two parts. First, make the MAC address stable on the home network by setting the random hardware address for that network to Off or On. Second, create a DHCP reservation on the router for the device's MAC address, so it always gets the same IP. Together, these make the address predictable without setting a static IP on the PC itself, which is easy to get wrong and causes problems when the laptop leaves home.

Find your MAC address on a PC that is not connected

You do not need a working connection to find a MAC address, which matters when you are registering a new PC with a network that blocks it until it is registered. Settings, Network & internet, Advanced network settings, Hardware and connection properties lists every adapter's physical address whether or not it is connected. getmac /v also lists disconnected adapters, marked Media disconnected, with their addresses.

For a Wi-Fi network that requires registration, remember the random address question: the address shown for an adapter that has never joined the network may not be the one Windows will use on it. Set the network's random hardware address to Off in its properties, under Manage known networks once it is saved, or turn off the global Random hardware addresses switch before connecting, so the built-in address is the one in use. During Windows setup on a new PC, before you can sign in, the label on the PC or its box is the only practical source, and it shows the built-in address, which is the right one if random addresses are off.

For IT: collecting MAC addresses from many PCs

Small offices and schools sometimes need a list of MAC addresses, for network registration, Wake-on-LAN or asset records. On each PC, getmac /v /fo csv outputs the list in CSV format that pastes cleanly into a spreadsheet, and the PowerShell export shown earlier saves it to a file. On a domain, a script can run Get-NetAdapter against many computers by name, or a management tool such as Intune or Configuration Manager can report network adapters from every device without visiting them.

Record the adapter name with each address, and note whether it is Wi-Fi, built-in Ethernet or a dock, since one laptop can easily have three addresses. Laptops that use random hardware addresses on the office Wi-Fi will not match the recorded built-in address, so either set random addresses off for the office network by policy, or use the address the network actually sees, from the Wi-Fi controller's client list.

Is it safe to share your MAC address?

Generally, yes. A MAC address is not a secret: any device on the same Wi-Fi network can see it, and it does not travel beyond your router to the internet. Sharing it with your internet provider, school IT or a support technician is normal. Someone who knows it cannot hack your PC with it alone.

The privacy concern is tracking. A fixed MAC address broadcast as you move between shops, airports and cafes lets networks that log addresses recognize your device in different places. Random hardware addresses solve this for Wi-Fi, which is why they are on by default on many devices. On public networks, keep them on; our guide to public Wi-Fi safety covers the other precautions.

Frequently asked questions

Finding a MAC address in Windows takes seconds: Settings, Network & internet, Hardware properties, or one command, getmac /v. The part that trips people up is which address: the one Windows uses on a network may be random, different from the sticker, and each adapter, including docks and virtual adapters, has its own. Use the address shown for the connection you are setting up, turn random addresses off for your home network when the router needs to recognize a device, and keep them on everywhere else. Ethan's parental controls have worked ever since.

Revision note. Written October 3, 2026, expanding our 2016 guide to finding a MAC address into a complete guide for Windows 11 and 10. It covers what a MAC address is, Settings, Command Prompt and PowerShell methods, other places Windows shows it, random hardware addresses, choosing the right adapter, other devices on your network, changing the address in Device Manager, PowerShell and the registry, troubleshooting, MAC versus IP, and privacy. May every device on your network answer to the right name.