Need to know your Mac’s IP address? You’ve come to the right place. We show how to find this information, as well as explaining what an IP address is and the difference between internal and external IP addresses.
What is an IP address?
Your IP address is your computer or device’s location online – where the internet can find you, essentially. Networking hardware needs to know this address in order to connect you to the internet, but it does this automatically, and it’s quite rare that you’ll need to know your IP address yourself.
Your IP address can be used to identify you and track your online activities. If that bothers you, it would be wise to use a VPN – we recommend NordVPN, but there are other options in our Best Mac VPNs roundup.
External and internal IP addresses
There are two kinds of IP address.
- External (or public) IP address. This is how the internet at large locates and contacts you; it is assigned to you by your ISP when you first go online, and can apply to a device or to an entire network that connects to the internet via a single point. This can appear in either IPv4 (four numbers separated by dots, for a total of around 8-12 digits) or IPv6 (eight numbers separated by digits, for around 30 digits) form.
- Internal (or private, or local). This address is not disclosed to the internet – it’s only used within your home network, and applies to a single device. A group of offline computers linked on a private network would use internal IP addresses to talk to each other, and your Wi-Fi router will use internal IP addresses to speak to the various devices that connect to it. This will always be in IPv4 form (four numbers separated by dots) and will nearly always be 192.168.X.X, with the Xs varying from device to device.
If someone refers to your IP address they probably mean the external one, but we’ll show how to find out both in this article.
How to find your external (public) IP address
The method you use here depends on whether you’re connected to a router, or directly to a modem.
Connected directly to modem
1. Open System Preferences. (Either click the cogs icon in your dock, or hit the Apple logo dropdown menu at the top left of your screen, and then select System Preferences.)
2. Click Network (under the Internet & Wireless section).
3. Highlight the option in the lefthand bar that has a green dot, then check the information that appears in the pane on the right. It should say Connected at the top; in the smaller text underneath it will tell you what your IP address is.
Connected to router
In this case the above method will yield your internal IP address instead, and finding the external address is trickier.
In this case we recommend using a service like What is my IP Address?
How to find your local internal (private/local) IP address
The IP address we discovered using the above method is the external IP address, and that will nearly always be what you need to find out. But very occasionally you’ll need to know your internal IP address instead.
1. Open System Preferences. (Either click the cogs icon in your dock, or hit the Apple logo dropdown menu at the top left of your screen, and then select System Preferences.)
2. Click Network (under the Internet & Wireless section).
3. Check in the lefthand bar to see how you’re connected. It’ll have a green dot next to it; any failed connections will have a red dot.
4. Make sure you have the green option highlighted, and check the information that appears in the pane on the right. It should say Connected at the top; underneath it will tell you your IP address, in the format XXX.XXX.X.X, almost certainly beginning 192.168.X.X.
In the screenshot below, we’ve highlighted the internal IP address. Note that a different IP address is given for the router two rows below: every device on your network, including the router, will be assigned an internal IP address, but the entire network will be assigned a single external IP address at the point it meets the internet.
That’s it! You now know what your IP address is. Perhaps you would now like to find out your Mac’s specs.
