An Internet Protocol address or, for its acronym in English, IP address, is an identification code made up of four blocks of figures between 0 and 255, which is assigned to each device on a computer network. This code, similar to a postal address, indicates who is the recipient of the data packets that are sent. 32-bit IP addresses, called IPv4, have this structure: 12.245.67.8. Whether it is a web page, an email server or a smartphone: without IP addresses, communication on the Internet or other similar networks would not be possible. It is very useful, therefore, to be able to find out your IP address..
There are local (or private) and public IP addresses . The local IP of a device is the one assigned to it within the local network, while the public IP is the one that identifies it when it connects to the Internet. Public IPs can easily be found through dedicated websites.
If you don't want to waste a second, you can use the practical IONOS IP lookup, which shows you your public IP address with just one click. Faster, impossible..
And where to find the IP of the local network? Most people know your postal address and phone number by heart, but have no idea what your local IP is. However, in many cases it could be very helpful, especially for troubleshooting problems with the network connection , which often requires this address to be entered, but also for establishing connections on the local network manually, for example. In each version of Windows and on macOS systems, the ways to display the local IP address differ. In this article we show you how to get it in each of the operating systems, step by step.
The Windows operating system regularly releases new versions. In each of them, the way to get to the IP address is usually the same, but with some details that vary. If you are using Windows 7 , you can see your IP as follows:
If you're using Windows 8 and you're wondering how you can see your local IP address, here's how to do it. Similar to Windows 7, it can be reached by entering the handy ipconfig command at the console. It's that easy:
Windows 10 is the latest version of Microsoft's operating system and offers different ways to find the local IP address. The first one is very similar to the ones described above for Windows 7 and 8, it also uses the ipconfig command and consists of the following steps:
In the second way of doing it, the command console does not intervene, since Windows 10 also offers the practical possibility of seeing the IP address with just a few clicks, following these steps:
You can also find your IP address on Mac: if you want to know how to see your IP on an Apple device, follow these steps:
The current version of the Internet protocol, called IPv4, makes possible about 4 billion different addresses. However, with the rapid growth of existing devices globally in recent years, this number is no longer sufficient. Therefore, in the future, this version will be replaced by IPv6. With this, the number of possible addresses will increase exponentially to ensure that there are enough addresses for all devices..
In reality, IPv6 has existed for some years now, but the different actors responsible for the change on the Internet are doing it little by little. However, there is no time to lose: especially considering the evolution of the Internet of Things (IoT), IPv4 addresses fall very short. Until then, we can help subnetting to connect devices to the network. What you can already do, however, is to follow the steps described in this article to also check your IPv6 address in the network settings of your device.
