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Guides / Find your MAC address

How to find MAC addresses on your router

Where to find the router's own address, and how to list the address of everything connected to it.

Short answer

The router's own MAC address is printed on the label on the bottom or back. The addresses of connected devices are on the router's admin page, in a section called something like Attached Devices, Clients or DHCP Client List.

The router's own MAC address

On the label

Every router maker we checked prints the MAC address on the sticker on the bottom or back of the unit, next to the serial number and the default Wi-Fi password. It is usually just labelled MAC.

On the admin page

Log in to the router (see the next section) and look for a Status, Device Info or System page. On TP-Link routers it is under Advanced, then Status. On ASUS it is behind the status icon on the Network Map. On Netgear it is under Internet on the Basic home page.

Note: A router has several MAC addresses: one for the LAN side, one for the Internet or WAN port, and one for each Wi-Fi band. If your Internet provider asks for your router's MAC address, they want the Internet or WAN one. Some providers lock the connection to the first device they see, which is why routers have a setting to clone a different MAC address onto the WAN port.

Devices connected to your router

Log in to the admin page

  1. Connect to the router's network, by Wi-Fi or cable.
  2. Open a browser and go to the address on the router's label. The common ones are 192.168.0.1 , 192.168.1.1 and 192.168.50.1 , or a name such as tplinkwifi.net , routerlogin.net , www.asusrouter.com or myrouter.local .
  3. Sign in with the admin password, which is on the label unless you changed it.

Find the device list

Every maker names it differently. These are the current ones:

  • Netgear: Attached Devices on the Basic home page.
  • TP-Link: Network Map for a quick view, or Advanced, Network, DHCP Client List for the addresses. In the Tether app, tap Clients.
  • ASUS: click the Clients icon on the Network Map, then a device to see its address. In the ASUS Router app, open the device list and tap a device.
  • Linksys: Troubleshooting, then the Status tab, then DHCP Client Table.
  • eero: the Devices tab in the app, then tap a device.
  • Google Nest Wifi: in the Google Home app open Wifi, then Devices, then tap a device.
Tip: Each entry shows a device name, its IP address and its MAC address. The names are whatever the devices chose to call themselves, so they are often blank or unhelpful. The MAC address is the part you can trust.

From a computer instead

Your computer keeps its own short list of the devices it has recently talked to on the local network, with their MAC addresses. It is not a full list, but it needs no password.

Windows and macOS

  1. Open a terminal: Terminal on a Mac, or Terminal, PowerShell or Command Prompt on Windows.
  2. Run arp -a .
  3. Each line pairs an IP address with a MAC address. On Windows the column is labelled Physical Address.

Linux

  1. Run ip neigh .
  2. The MAC address is the value after lladdr on each line.
Note: Only devices that have exchanged traffic with your computer recently appear, so open the router's page or ping a device first if it is missing. Microsoft's reference for arp covers the Windows version.

Working out what a device is

Once you have an address, paste it into the lookup on our home page to see who made the network chip. A result like Samsung, Sonos or Espressif usually settles it. If the result says "locally administered", the device is using a randomized address, which modern phones and laptops do by default, so it is most likely someone's phone.

These steps follow the support pages of Netgear, TP-Link, ASUS and Linksys.