Your MAC address is important information. It’s a hardware identifier that helps networks identify your computer or phone to other devices on the network. You can change the MAC address, but it’s not very intuitive. Usually the only thing that can see your MAC address is your home router, so it’s not really necessary to change your MAC unless you connect to a lot of public networks. It’s also a much more valuable tool to use on a smartphone than a computer. In any case, we’ll show you how to change your MAC address on most modern devices, so you can stay private.
Read next: How to run Android apps on Windows 11
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To change the MAC address on most devices, you’ll find the options somewhere in your device’s network settings. You can usually change it or at least see the MAC address there.
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How to change MAC address in Windows
Windows has a few different methods for changing the MAC address. A couple of them also overlap. Next, we’ll review three different methods for changing your MAC address. The first only works on Windows 10 and 11. The second seems to only work with some hardware on some versions of Windows. Finally, we’ll finish with the third method which should work on all Windows computers, but is the hardest to do.
Some third-party apps can also do this. We recommend you check out Technitium. It’s a solid option that’s also free to use. The user interface is a bit strange, but you’ll get used to it pretty quickly.
How to change MAC address in Windows 11
Joe Hindy / Android Authority
- Press the Windows key on your keyboard and type Settings in the search. Open the Settings app when it appears.
- Go to the Network and Internet section.
- Tap Ethernet if you’re connected to your router, or Wi-Fi if you’re connected wirelessly. If you did Ethernet, skip the next step and proceed from there.
- If you clicked Wi-Fi, click your SSID on the next screen.
- From there, search for random hardware address selection. It’s off by default, but you can turn it on or change it daily.
- If you set it to On, your MAC address is randomized to any device that can see it.
- If you set it to Change Daily, your MAC address will be randomized every 24 hours.
This is the process for Windows 11. You can’t manually change the MAC using this method, but it still obfuscates the MAC address of any network you’re on.
How to change the MAC address in older versions of Windows
Joe Hindy / Android Authority
- Press the Windows key and type Control Panel in the search. Open the control panel once it appears in the search.
- Use the search bar in the upper right corner to search for network connections. Click the Show network connections link.
- On the next screen, find the network adapter you are currently using. If it has a red X under the icon, it’s not the one you’re using. Double-click your active network adapter.
- Tap the Properties button at the bottom of the window. On the next screen, find and click the Configure button. Finally, on the next screen, click on the Advanced tab.
- Then, under Property, click the Network Address item.
- Enter your new MAC address. Windows will add the score for you, so if you want it to be A1:B2:C3:D4:E5:F6, you’ll write it as A1B2C3D4E5F6. Remember that MAC addresses must be 12 characters long. Click OK when you’re done.
- Restart your computer.
- Finally, let’s check and make sure it worked well. Press the Windows key and search for CMD. Open the command prompt when it appears in the search.
- Type IPCONFIG /ALL and press Enter. Find your network adapter, then find the physical address. It should be the same as what you defined in the previous steps.
- Note: There is another method that takes you through the Device Manager where you find your network adapter and go directly to the properties. However, you end up getting the same window either way and the control panel method is a bit easier.
How to Change MAC Address in Windows with Registry Editor
Joe Hindy / Android Authority
- Press the Windows key, search for CMD and open a command prompt.
- Type IPCONFIG /ALL and press Enter.
- Note the MAC address of the adapter you want to change. You will need this information later. We recommend that you write this down in a Notepad file or simply leave the System Prompt window open for the rest of this tutorial.
- Then press the Windows key again, search for Regedit, and open the Registry Editor application when it appears. It will ask you for administrator permission. Give it a go and get ready for some digging.
- Open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, then SYSTEM, CurrentControlSet, Control, Class. Once done, you’ll have a massive list of seemingly random values.
- You want to find {4d36e972-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}. It’s there, just take your time.
- Once there, you should see a group of numbered folders starting with 0000. Each individual folder is one of your network interfaces. Click on each one and check the DriverDesc to find the network adapter you want to change.
- Right-click the numbered folder and select New, then String Value. Your new string value will be displayed in the window. Change the name to NetworkAddress.
- Double-click the new string value (or right-click and click Modify). In the empty box, enter your new MAC address. Again, Windows will add the score for you, so if you want it to be A1:B2:C3:D4:E5:F6, you’ll write it as A1B2C3D4E5F6. Remember that MAC addresses must be 12 characters long. Click OK when you’re done.
- From there, restart your computer. After it reboots, go back to the command prompt and run another IPCONFIG /ALL. The chosen network adapter should have a new MAC address.
- Note: You can go back to the registry and delete the NetworkAddress string you created to reverse the changes. The system will notify you about the deletion of registry entries. However, you did this one, so you can delete it without causing problems. Just make sure it’s what you did.
How to change MAC address on Android
Joe Hindy / Android Authority
Android is a bit more demanding than other platforms because Google doesn’t let you mess around with a lot of things without root access. Fortunately, Android devices will randomize the MAC address on their own. Google started doing this starting in Android 10, so you don’t really need to change anything. It will just change on its own.
Since this kind of completes the mission of making your device difficult to identify on public networks, you don’t actually need to do anything with your Android phone. It already does it for you.
However, for people with Android 9.0 or lower, your MAC address is not random. The good news is that you can still randomize it. However, the bad news is that you need root to do this. This is the method, but we are not responsible for any damage you suffer while doing it.
- The first step is to root your phone. Each phone has a different method of doing this, so search Google for your phone model, follow the instructions carefully, and come back here when you’re done.
- You will also need to install Busybox. We recommend BusyBox for Android (Google Play) or BusyBox (Google Play).
- After that you will need to change my MAC (Google Play).
- Once installed, open the app and give it superuser permissions.
- From there, follow the instructions in the app. You will be able to assign your own custom MAC address or have it randomized.
- To revert: All you have to do is turn off your Wi-Fi and turn it back on. It will revert to its default MAC address or another random one if you have Android 10 or higher.
We wish there was an easier way to do this in older versions of Android. If we spot a method that actually works in our tests, we’ll update this article and put it here. Thankfully, Google removed the need for this in newer versions of Android, but older versions have a lot of work ahead of them here.
How to change MAC address in macOS
There are a few different ways to change your MAC address on macOS that vary in difficulty. We will give you some different methods so you can choose the one you want.
Change macOS MAC address with Terminal
Joe Hindy / Android Authority
- First, click the Apple logo in the upper-left corner and tap System Preferences. Find and click Network. In the next window, towards the bottom, click on the Advanced button.
- On this next screen, look for the Wi-Fi MAC Address part to see your current MAC address. You can leave this window open for the rest of the tutorial or write down the MAC address on a note or piece of paper.
- Next, click the Apple logo in the upper left and, while holding down Options (Alt), tap System Information. When the window opens, click Network in the left margin.
- On the next page, you will find your Wi-Fi adapter. Look under the BSD device name to find the name of your network adapter. Mine was at 0.
- Now that we have your current MAC address and network adapter name, we have all the tools we need to get this working.
- Then disconnect your Mac from the network, but don’t turn off the adapter. For example, if you’re on Wi-Fi, disconnect from your Wi-Fi connection, but don’t turn off Wi-Fi completely.
- Open the Launchpad and search for Terminal. Open it when you find it.
- Then type sudo ifconfig [network adapter name] ether xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx and press Enter. In this command, replace [network adapter name] with the name of the adapter we found in the previous steps and replace xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx with the MAC address of your choice. Check the screenshot above to see what I used.
- Pro Tip: Some sources have said that you may need to run this command a couple of times to get it to stick. If you press the arrow keys, it will re-fill the command and you can just press enter again. Do this like five or six times. It won’t hurt anything.
- Repeat the above step to check and see if your MAC address has changed.
Change macOS MAC Address with Homebrew
Joe Hindy / Android Authority
Homebrew is a package manager for macOS and comes with a lot of really cool tools. One of the…