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A MAC address is a unique identifier that is assigned to each physical network interface on a computer. Different than a computers IP address, MAC addresses are frequently used for network access control and to monitor network connectivity, and they can be spoofed for virtualization needs or to circumvent some network limitations. If you need to access yours, here’s how to find one from the friendly GUI and the command line.
Instructions
How to Locate a MAC Address in Mac OS X and OS 11 (Big Sur)
To quickly find a MAC address on a Mac with OS, do the following:
- Open System Preferences from the Apple menu
- Click on “Network”
- Select your currently active network connection from the left menu (Wi-Fi, Ethernet, etc) and then click on “Advanced” in the lower right corner
- Look at the bottom of the window for “Wi-Fi Address”, the hexadecimal characters next to this are the machines MAC address
The address is always in the form aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff, looking something like “ce:9e:8d:02:1d:e9” or a variation of.
Note that the wireless MAC address will be labeled as “Wi-Fi Mac Address” in new versions of OS as well as iPhone and iOS, whereas it’s called “Airport Address” in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and before.
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