You get a suspicious login alert with an IP address you do not recognize. A server log shows repeated requests from an IP you have never seen before. An email lands in your inbox and something about it seems off, so you want to verify where it actually came from. In all three cases, the next step is the same: look up the IP.
The IP Address Lookup tool is the fastest option available. Open it and your own public IP appears automatically, along with your ISP, city, country, ASN, and timezone. To check any other IP, paste it into the search field and click Look up. Results appear in seconds with no account required.
There are also built-in methods on every device for finding your own IP without a browser. This guide covers every approach: the online tool, Windows, Mac, iPhone, Android, website IPs, and reading IP addresses from email headers.
The difference between your local IP and public IP
Before you look anything up, it helps to know which IP address you are actually after. There are two distinct addresses that people often confuse.
Local IP: Assigned by your router. This is the IP your router uses to identify your device within your home or office network. Local IPs follow private address ranges: 192.168.x.x, 10.x.x.x, or 172.16.x.x. They are invisible to the outside internet and cannot be geolocated by any tool.
Public IP: Assigned by your ISP. This is the address that all external servers see when you connect to the internet. Your router presents one public IP on behalf of every device on your network. This is the IP that geolocation tools return data for.
When you ask "what is my IP address," you almost always mean the public IP. When setting up port forwarding, remote desktop, or local network services, the local IP is what you need.
Most lookup tools, including this one, work with public IPs. If you enter a local address like 192.168.1.100, the tool will return an error because private addresses have no geolocation data.
How to look up any IP address online
The IP Address Lookup tool handles both your own IP and any IP you need to investigate.
To check your own public IP:
- Open the tool. Your IP appears automatically in the results panel on load.
- The result shows ISP, city, region, country, ASN, timezone, and coordinates.
To look up any other IP:
- Copy the IP address you want to investigate.
- Paste it into the search field at the top of the tool.
- Click "Look up."
- The tool returns ISP, city, country, network owner, ASN, and timezone for that IP.
Both IPv4 (such as 203.0.113.42) and IPv6 formats are supported. Private and reserved addresses return an error since they have no public geolocation data. VPN IPs return the data for the VPN server's location, not your actual location.
How to find your IP address on Windows
Windows gives you several ways to find your local IP, and one reliable method for checking your public IP from the command line.
Command Prompt (fastest):
- Press
Win + R, typecmd, press Enter. - Run
ipconfig. - Find "IPv4 Address" under your active adapter. For Wi-Fi connections this is usually "Wireless LAN adapter Wi-Fi." For wired connections it is "Ethernet adapter."
If you see multiple adapters listed (VPN clients and virtual adapters each create their own entry), focus on the adapter that matches how you are currently connected to the internet.
PowerShell:
Get-NetIPAddress -AddressFamily IPv4
This gives a cleaner list of all IPv4 addresses. Ignore 127.0.0.1 (loopback) and any 169.254.x.x addresses (link-local, assigned when no DHCP server is reachable). Your actual local IP is in the 10.x.x.x, 172.x.x.x, or 192.168.x.x range.
Windows Settings: Go to Settings > Network and Internet > Wi-Fi or Ethernet > click your network name. Your IP address, subnet mask, and DNS server appear in the connection properties.
Public IP from Command Prompt:
curl ifconfig.me
This returns your public IP in a single line. Works on Windows 10 and Windows 11 without installing anything extra.
How to find your IP address on Mac
Terminal, public IP:
curl ifconfig.me
Returns your public IP immediately. The fastest single-step method.
Terminal, local IP:
ifconfig | grep "inet "
The output lists all inet addresses. Skip 127.0.0.1 (loopback). The address next to en0 is your Wi-Fi IP. en1 is typically Ethernet. If you have a VPN running, there will be an additional entry for the VPN tunnel interface.
System Settings:
- Open System Settings (System Preferences on macOS Ventura and earlier).
- Go to Network.
- Select your active connection on the left.
- Your local IP address appears in the details panel.
Click the "Details" button next to the network name for the full configuration including subnet mask and router address.
How to find your IP address on iPhone
iOS shows the local Wi-Fi IP in Settings. For your public IP you need a browser, since Apple does not expose the public IP in the system settings interface.
Local Wi-Fi IP:
- Open Settings.
- Tap Wi-Fi.
- Tap the
iicon next to your connected network name. - Your IP address appears under the IPv4 Address section.
Public IP: Open Safari or Chrome and use the IP Address Lookup tool. It detects your public IP automatically when the page loads.
When connected on mobile data rather than Wi-Fi, your IP is a carrier-assigned address from a large dynamic pool. The location shown for a mobile carrier IP typically reflects the carrier's regional infrastructure, which may differ from your actual city.
How to find your IP address on Android
Steps vary by manufacturer but the path is similar across Android versions.
Local Wi-Fi IP:
- Open Settings.
- Go to Network and Internet (or Connections on Samsung devices).
- Tap Wi-Fi, then tap the name of your connected network.
- Tap Advanced or the gear icon depending on your device.
- Your IP address appears under Network details.
On some Android versions the IP shows directly on the network detail screen without needing to expand Advanced options.
Public IP: Open any browser and use the IP Address Lookup tool. Your public IP appears automatically.
How to find the IP address of a website or domain
Every website resolves to one or more IP addresses through DNS. To find the IP behind a domain:
Windows Command Prompt or Mac/Linux Terminal:
nslookup example.com
The result shows the IP address the domain points to. The "Non-authoritative answer" section contains the actual resolved IPs. Some sites return multiple addresses if they use load balancing across servers.
Alternatively:
ping example.com -n 1
On Windows the output shows the resolved IP in brackets on the first line. On Mac and Linux use -c 1 instead of -n 1.
One caveat worth knowing: sites that use CDNs like Cloudflare, Fastly, or Akamai return edge server IPs, not the origin server. If you run nslookup on a Cloudflare-protected domain, the IP you get belongs to a shared Cloudflare node, not the actual web server. This is normal and expected. The origin server IP is intentionally hidden as part of the CDN's DDoS protection.
How to trace an IP from an email header
Every email carries routing information in its headers, including the IP addresses of the servers it passed through on its way to you. Reading these headers tells you where an email actually came from.
In Gmail:
- Open the email.
- Click the three-dot menu at the top right of the message (More options).
- Select "Show original."
- In the raw header view, look for lines beginning with
Received: from. - The IP address in square brackets on those lines belongs to the sending server.
In Outlook:
- Open the email.
- Go to File > Properties.
- The raw headers appear in the "Internet headers" box.
- Find the
Received:lines and look for the IP in brackets.
Read the Received: headers from bottom to top. The bottommost one was added by the originating server. Each subsequent line was added by a relay server passing the message along. The first IP you see reading from the bottom is the one that matters for identifying the sender's network.
Once you have the sending IP, paste it into the lookup tool to see the ISP and approximate location of the sending server. A mismatch between the claimed sender country and the actual IP origin is a clear signal of spoofing or phishing.
What the lookup results mean
ISP and Organization: The company that owns the IP block. For residential connections this is your internet provider. For servers it is the hosting company or cloud provider. AWS, Google Cloud, Cloudflare, and similar providers have their own registered IP ranges that appear by name.
City and Region: Where the IP range is registered in network infrastructure, not necessarily where the device is physically located. Your ISP may route your traffic through infrastructure in a different city, so your IP appears to be there even if you are not. The IP address location lookup guide has a detailed breakdown of accuracy by level and explains why results are sometimes off.
ASN (Autonomous System Number): A unique identifier for the network operator. All IPs belonging to a given ISP or cloud provider share the same ASN. Useful for identifying which provider owns a block of addresses and for attributing traffic to a known network.
Coordinates: The registered network location, not GPS position. These coordinates point to the ISP's infrastructure location, not the physical position of any device. Do not use them to locate a person.
Timezone and UTC offset: Derived from the registered geographic region of the IP block.
What IP lookup cannot tell you
This is worth stating directly because it is a common source of confusion.
An IP lookup cannot identify an individual person. The result names the ISP or organization that owns the IP block. To go from an IP to a specific person requires a legal request to the ISP, which only law enforcement can make.
It cannot provide a street address. The city shown is approximate and based on network registration data. The coordinates in the result are not the location of a device.
It cannot track someone in real time. The database reflects registration data. The result is the same whether the device is online or offline.
It will not bypass a VPN. If someone is using a VPN, the lookup returns the VPN server's location. There is no way to see behind an active VPN connection using a public IP lookup tool.
These are hard limits that apply to every public lookup tool, not limitations of any specific implementation.
When reverse IP lookup is the right tool
Standard IP lookup returns ISP, location, and network data. If you need the hostname registered to an IP address, that is a different query: reverse DNS lookup.
Reverse lookup is the right tool when you need to verify that a mail server has a PTR record configured (a missing PTR record is a major spam signal), identify a server by hostname in firewall logs, or check whether an IP resolves to a legitimate domain name.
The reverse IP address lookup guide covers how PTR records work, what they return for different IP types, and when reverse lookup gives you something standard IP lookup cannot.
For a complete overview of everything an IP lookup can return including WHOIS registration data, the IP address lookup guide covers the full picture in one place. The Developer Tools section has the IP lookup tool alongside other network and security utilities.
