How to Find Your IP Address on Mac Using the Command Line
This article explains how to find your private (local) and public IP addresses on a Mac using the command line.
If you're using Windows, see the following article for instructions:
Find your private IP address
You can find your private IP address by specifying a network interface with the ipconfig getifaddr
command.
On most Macs, the Wi-Fi interface is typically named en0
, so you can run:
$ ipconfig getifaddr en0
192.168.XXX.XXX
To see more detailed network information, use the ifconfig
command:
$ ifconfig en0
...
If you're using a wired connection, the interface name may be different. In that case, replace en0
with the correct name.
You can list all network interfaces using the networksetup -listallhardwareports
command:
$ networksetup -listallhardwareports
Hardware Port: Wi-Fi
Device: en0
Ethernet Address: XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX
Hardware Port: Thunderbolt 1
Device: en1
Ethernet Address: XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX
...
Look for the Device
value that corresponds to the network you're connected to, and use that with ipconfig
or ifconfig
as needed.
Find your public IP address
There are several websites that will show your public IP address when accessed. One example is a site provided by AWS:
You can retrieve your public IP from the terminal using curl
:
$ curl checkip.amazonaws.com
XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX
Note that checkip.amazonaws.com returns the IP address from the X-Forwarded-For
header if it is present, which can result in an inaccurate reading of your actual public IP address, especially in testing scenarios.
$ curl checkip.amazonaws.com --header "X-Forwarded-For: 0.0.0.0"
0.0.0.0
If you need a service that ignores the X-Forwarded-For
header, consider using the following:
$ curl ifconfig.io
XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX
$ curl ifconfig.io --header "X-Forwarded-For: 0.0.0.0"
XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX