How to Find the MAC Address on a Device

Owned by Kimberly Adkins
Last updated: Dec 01, 2022 by Kimberly Adkins

Overview

This article explains how to locate the MAC address on different devices.

A Media Access Control (MAC) Address can be referred to as an Adapter Address, Physical Address, or Hardware Address. This address is a unique identification number assigned to each network interface controller (NIC) during manufacture.

The method used to locate a MAC Address differs depending on the operating system being used.

Table of Contents

Windows 10 

  1. Click the Start Menu icon.


  2. Search for "cmd" and open the Command Prompt program.


  3. In the window that appears, type "getmac /v" and press Enter.


  4. The MAC Address of your network interface controller (NIC) will display in the Physical Address column. The MAC Address is 12 alphanumeric long.


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Mac OS X

  1. Click the Apple icon and select System Preferences.


  2. Within the System Preferences pane, select Network.


  3. Choose the connection type you typically use to connect to the USF network and click Advanced. (In this example we were using Wi-Fi to connect to the USF network.)


  4. The MAC Address of the selected connection type will display on the Hardware tab. The MAC Address is 12 alphanumeric long.


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 Linux

  1. Open Terminal.

  2. Type "ifconfig -a" and press Enter.

  3. The MAC Address of any network interface controller (NIC) should appear in the output of the respective connection type. 

  • Typically Ethernet Controllers are denoted as eth# and Wireless as wlan#.

  • Depending on your flavor of Linux, the MAC Address may display as ether or HWaddr.

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