A MAC address is a 12-character hexadecimal number (e.g., D8-BB-C1-A0-FC-23) assigned to Network Interface Controllers (NICs). It’s also called a physical address or hardware address.
Every NIC has a unique MAC address, which means it can be used to identify devices on a network. you may also use this ID for other tasks like limiting the bandwidth for certain devices, orrestricting network access entirely.
I’ll cover various ways to find the MAC Address of your PC in this article. If your current setup doesn’t allow for certain methods, you may go with different ones. I’ll also explain how you can get the MAC addresses of other devices on the network.
The MAC address is usually physically printed on the hardware. This applies to PCI network cards, USB wireless adapters, as well as other devices like routers, printers, etc.
Thus, the most obvious way to find a device’s MAC address is to physically check the device.
Through Windows Settings
Opening up the PC case to get a close look at the NIC isn’t exactly convenient, particularly with laptops.USB network adapterswon’t always have the MAC address physically printed either. In such cases, you may easily check the MAC Address via Windows Settings.
Through Control Panel
you may utilize the Network Connections control panel applet if you want to find the MAC address of other network adapters.
Through Command Prompt
you may utilize the command prompt to find the MAC address of devices through several commands.
Thegetmaccommand is the easiest way to get MAC addresses from the command line. Use it with the verbose option as shown below:
Theipconfigutility lets you interact with various network configurations in Windows. It’s most commonly used tocheck the device’s IP address. When it’s used with the/allparameter, it’ll display the full TCP/IP configuration for adapters, which includes the MAC address.
As the name implies,Get-NetAdapteris a PowerShell cmdlet that lists network adapters along with some basic properties. To use it,
Netshis a versatile scripting utility that’s used for modifying network configurations. One of the simpler uses ofnetshis to list the network interfaces and their various properties.
