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You may want to find your Chromebook’s MAC address for several reasons, including connecting your Chromebook to WiFi or troubleshooting network issues.
A Media Access Control (MAC) address is a unique address assigned to the device’s network interface card (NIC). NIC is present on all devices and allows interconnectivity between devices on a network.
It consists of six groups of hexadecimal digits, each consisting of two digits separated by a colon. Here’s a sample of a MAC address: 00:1A:2B:3C:4D:5E.
People are confused by the MAC address and IP address of their devices. The router or server assigns an IP address and can change depending on the network. On the other hand, a MAC address is usually hard-coded into the NIC by the manufacturer.
I hope you understand MAC addresses and how they differ from IP addresses. Now, let us understand how to find a Chromebook’s MAC address using the following two quick methods.
Method 1: Use Chrome to find MAC address in Chromebook
As a first method, you can use Google Chrome browser to find your Chromebook’s MAC address.
Here’s how to do that:
- Open Chrome and then type chrome://system in the address bar at the top. This will open the ‘About System’ page, displaying all the important information.
- Now, scroll down and then click on Expand next to ifconfig.
- Notice the ether section under wlan0. This is the MAC address on your Chromebook.
Also read: How to find the Mac address on PS4?
Method 2: Find the Chromebook’s MAC address via the home screen
Another more direct way to know the MAC address in the Chromebook is via the home screen.
Step 1: Boot up your Chromebook and then click on the time in the screen’s bottom-right corner. Next, click on the WiFi network that your device is connected to.
Step 2: Select the WiFi network.
Step 3: You will notice the MAC address at the bottom section.
Also read: How to change the password on a Chromebook?
Why do you need a MAC address?
There are several instances where you might need the MAC address of your device, including Windows, Macs, or Chromebooks.
Here are some examples:
- If a WiFi network uses MAC address filtering, you must provide your device’s MAC address to the network administrator to allow it to connect to that network.
- For troubleshooting network issues.
- For identifying your Chromebook or other devices on a specified network. This is useful if you have connected other devices to the same network and want to stream online from your Chromebook to that other device.
Thus, knowing the MAC address of your device is important if you are in a job connected to a network. You can use any of the two methods mentioned above to find Chromebook’s MAC address.
Also read: How to print from a Chromebook?
