Do you need to find your IP or MAC address, but aren’t sure where in Windows 10 that you should look? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered! If you follow the steps below, you’ll find your IP and Mac address, and remember how to do it for years to come.
What is a MAC Address?
A MAC address is your IPv4 address and your physical address combined. When you try to access the internet, your wireless card/Ethernet cable sends your MAC address to the router, which then forwards it to the website you’re trying to access. This basically tells the website you’re a real person and not doing anything they wouldn’t want you to do
Why Change Your MAC Address?
There are quite a few reasons to change your MAC address. For one, if your internet card breaks and you get a replacement, you would need to change its MAC address to match the old one, unless you’re willing to wait several days for your internet service provider to approve the new internet card’s MAC address.
Another reason why you’d want to change your MAC address is that there could be security issues. By using simple tools, anyone could steal your MAC address and surf the web, posing as you.
One thing to look out for is the great multitude of false or reasons that don’t hold any weight for changing your MAC address. While there are many legitimate reasons to change your MAC address, don’t feel like you need to change it every week. In some situations of using public Wi-Fi while traveling, or at coffee shops, etc., changing your MAC address may be a good idea to keep hackers and malware at bay.
How To Find Mac Address In Windows 10
As we already mentioned, it’s super easy to find your IP and Mac address in windows 10. All you need to do is click through a couple of windows! Here’s the steps:
- Open up the Settings app
- Click on the Network & Internet section
- Next, you have to choose a connection type.
- For our purposes, we’re looking at the Wi-Fi type. So select the Wi-Fi item.
- If you navigate to the bottom of the network names, you can click a button that says Advanced Options. Do so.
- At the bottom of the Properties section, you’ll see the information on both your IP and MAC address.
- If you’re on an Ethernet connection, you’ll want to click the Ethernet item, and then the Connected tab. Once again, the Properties section will show you information on your IP and MAC address.
Finding your IP and Mac Address Verdict
As you can see, it’s extremely easy to find your IP and MAC address in Windows 10. There’s a few more steps than previous versions of the operating system, but still easy to get to.
There are lots of good reasons to change your MAC address, but there are also lots of illegitimate reasons as well. While changing it for any reason isn’t going to negatively impact your network card, you could be waiting on your ISP to approve your new MAC address when you didn’t previously ever need to do so.
Changing your MAC address is super easy and doesn’t take a lot of time, but can be really helpful for remembering it later when you change your network card or think you may be at risk to hackers and viruses.