Sep 08, 2016 Changing Your Mac Address. To change your Mac address, you’ll need to open the Terminal application from your dock (if that’s where it lives) or by going through Mac’s Finder. To open Terminal from Finder, click Go Scroll down to Utilities, click it then, open the Terminal application from the Utilities window. Feb 18, 2014 The other for my iTunes/Mac App Store content. It's not difficult. Just because the user name is a defunct mac.com email address doesn't mean that you can't update the primary email associated with the Apple ID to a functioning email address. The one for my Apple accounts is a gmail address and the one for my iTunes/MAS account is a hotmail. The desktop, menu bar, and Help on your Mac. The first thing you see on your MacBook Air is the desktop, where you can quickly open apps, search for anything on your MacBook Air and the web, organize your files, and more. The local hostname, or local network name, is displayed beneath the computer’s name at the top of the Sharing preferences pane. It identifies your Mac to Bonjour-compatible services. Hardrive copy software mac free. The local hostname is your computer’s name with.local added, and any spaces are replaced with hyphens. For example, if your computer’s name is My Computer, your local hostname is My-Computer.local.
MAC address short form of Media Access Control Address, is a address that uniquely identifies you computer. For every network card on your computer there is a MAC address, which comes built-in. This applies to all types of network cards be it Ethernet or WiFi. Whether you are using a wired connection or wireless one, you do need to transfer data from your computer to some other computer. But how does the other computer find your computer? That is where addresses come in. These addresses are actually hard-coded into the network card. These are given to a network adapter in the manufacturing stage itself. And since these addresses are permanent, they are generally used to prevent devices from accessing a particular network. Does this mean they can never be changed? Well, yes. Then what is this article about? One simple word, MAGIC ! The hard-coded MAC address can never be changed but you can spoof the MAC address in your operating system. But before moving on with our spoofing mac address OS X trick, let’s see what does a MAC address look like.
MAC address is the lower sub-layer of the data link layer in the Open System Interconnection (OSI) model. It is a six-byte number. MAC address is also often referred as the Physical Address. A possible MAC address can be 2F-4D-5B-6E-2A-9C. As you can clearly see it is a 12-digit hexadecimal or 48 bits number. The first 6 digits helps to find the manufacturer, while the last six digits find your device. The manufacturers have already got this special number sequence to find themselves as manufactures. Dell has 00-14-22 at the beginning, Cisco has 00-40-96 and so on. These are often referred as OUI or Organizationally Unique Identifier. The last 6 digits or three bytes is the NIC (Network Interface Controller) specifier. A possible question now arises that why would someone like to change their MAC address? It is for so many reasons. If your network limits access to some MAC addresses, then you can change it and have the network access. If a network filters out access based on MAC address, then you can sniff out a legitimate MAC address, change your MAC address and connect. If you want privacy over surfing or any network activity, you could change your MAC address and be untraceable. You can also bypass certain network restriction by spoofing an authorized MAC address. There are many more reasons one might want to change his/her computers MAC address. Let’s not go to too much detail and begin.
Mar 20, 2017 How to Change MAC Address on Mac. One thing to keep in mind is that the change in your Mac’s MAC address won’t be permanent. Once you reboot your Mac, it’s going to go back to the original MAC address. The first thing you’ll need to do is open a Terminal window. You can open one by pressing Command and Space together and typing Terminal.
Before changing the MAC address on Mac Computer let’s see how can you look up your MAC address. There are generally three ways to go about it.
Press and hold the option key, now click on the WiFi icon from the menu bar. You will see couple of things here, look out for “Address:”. The next 12 hexadecimal digits following it is your MAC address. And it tells you the connection name also. Wasn’t it easy?
2. Medium
WiFi Spoof MAC
Open up System Preference and now move on to Network section. Speed art app for mac. Select the network via which you are connected and then click on the Advanced button. Now, select the Hardware tab, the first thing you will see is MAC address.
3. Advanced
This is the toughest one of the all. Open up the terminal and type the command:
ifconfig en0 | grep ether
This actually shows the MAC address for en0 interface. Just change the name of the interface and look for yourself. Was it that difficult?
Now, that we know our MAC address, let us generate some random MAC addresses, in the terminal just type:
openssl rand -hex 6 | sed ‘s/(.)/1:/g; s/.$//’
This will generate a random MAC address. The format of MAC address as earlier mentioned in this article is in the form xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx, if you already have one in mind you don’t need to generate one. But keep in mind it should be 12 digits hexadecimal.
changing mac address on macOS sierra or OS X Yosemite or OS X El Capitan or any Mac OS X is just one command, open up the terminal and type in:
sudo ifconfig en0 ether xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
You need to have administrative privileges to change the MAC address, hence it will ask for the password. It is best recommended that you disconnect from the network while changing your MAC address and then again reconnect after successfully changing it. Also, make a note of your default hardware MAC address. Some the MAC use Wi-Fi instead of ether in the above command. if you meet any problem try to use Wi-Fi. Remove the xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx with your MAC address generated or you have in mind. And also replace en0 with any other interface name that you are using. If you don’t know the interface name, you should check it from the above mentioned steps. To confirm that it has been changed you could use any of the above mentioned way. If you are changing your MAC address to get privacy you better generate random MAC address.
After changing the MAC address on your OS X or sierra or yosemite or el capitan it might be possible that you meet network issues, in that case make sure you turn off and then turn on your network device. You can use the method and get around with any blocking. It sounded a very difficult task at the beginning, but even you can see how easy it was. Let me know, how did it go for you?
The MAC (media access controller) address is a unique identification number for your computer’s networking hardware. Generally, it just works, but sometimes you need to change it. Apple and Microsoft don’t make it easy to change your MAC address, but it is possible.
Why Would You Want to Change it?
This setting doesn’t give you any speed or performance benefit. It’s like the phone number of your hardware. If you change it to an existing number, you’ll confuse your network.
The most common reason for changing your MAC address is some other device is locked to an old address. Your router or another piece of hardware might only accept or give out connections to a particular MAC address. I ran into this problem once connecting to my office computer. The IT help desk was closed, but I needed to connect to the network with a different laptop. Once I changed my new laptop to my old laptop’s MAC address I got into the network.
Another reason to change your MAC address is for wifi networks that limit the time or number of connections. You shouldn’t use this to bypass time restrictions on a network, but you can transfer your connection time to another MAC address. For example, you might sign up for a few hours of Wi-Fi on your tablet. Then want to use your laptop on the network. Instead of paying for another connection, changing your laptop’s MAC to the MAC address of your tablet might get you out of paying for an extra connection.
Be Ethical: Don’t use this to circumvent security or cheat.
Finally, someone can track you through your MAC address. You might want to change it each time you connect to a network or just use a random address.
How to Find a MAC Address On a PC
If you’re on a PC, the easiest way is through the command prompt. Type
ipconfig /all
and you’ll see all your network interfaces and the physical address. That’s the MAC address.
You can also find it by going to Control Panel > Network and Internet > Network Connections. Then right-click on the network adapter and pick Status > Details. Again, the physical address is the MAC address.
PC Command Prompt Tips: Here’s a list of cool command prompt tips. You can even install apps from the command prompt.
How to Find a MAC Address On a Mac
If you’re on a wireless network, hold down the option key while clicking on the wifi icon in the menu bar. It will tell you the Interface Name and the Address. That address is your MAC address. If you’re on Ethernet or another connection, you’ll need to go to the Network System Preferences.
Select the interface you’re checking, then go to Advanced->Hardware. At the top is the MAC address.
You can also type
ifconfig
in terminal, and that will tell you the MAC address of all your interfaces.
Cool wireless Mac tools: That option key is just one of many hidden Mac wireless features.
The Easy Way to Change This on a Mac
The best program I’ve found for this on the Mac is WifiSpoof. It’s $9.99, but they offer a free 2-week trial. It not only makes it easy to change the address but runs as a menu bar icon if you want. It can randomize the MAC address each time it’s run. If you’re concerned about tracking, this is the app for you.
If all you want is a simple way to change the address, Mac MACSpoof does this for a $4.99 optional purchase. The interface isn’t as slick and the app requires an additional “helper” app to install.
The Easy Way to Change This on a PC
Just like on a Mac, a third-party software makes this easy for a PC. For example, Technitium MAC Address Changer is a free program that does this for you.
What I like about this app is it lets you pick a random MAC address if all you’re interested in is changing the address for testing purposes. It also enables you to know which addresses are active.
NoVirusThanks’s MAC Address Changer is another free program. It has fewer options, but it is easier to use than Technitium’s version.
Windows 10 users: Your computer’s hardware might support automatic MAC randomization.
Change Mac Address In Mac
The Direct Way to Change This on a Mac
If you feel comfortable in the OS X terminal type the command
sudo ifconfig en0 xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
Replacing the XX with the number of the new MAC address.
The Direct Way to Change This on a PC
Similar to the direct way on a Mac, this way works without third-party software. Head on over to Device Manager. Then click the disclosure triangle and find the adapter you want to change. Again remember, each type of adapter uses a unique MAC address.
After you find your adapter, click Properties then Advanced. You’ll see the Property called Network Address. Go to the Value: box and change the value to what you want.
Remember to Change It Back
Whichever option you choose, don’t forget to change the MAC address back when you’re done. If you don’t, you might have problems on other networks. If your goal is to use a random address, you might have trouble if someone is already using that MAC address.
ALSO SEE:How to Prevent a Mac From Connecting to the Wrong Wireless Network
The above article may contain affiliate links which help support Guiding Tech. However, it does not affect our editorial integrity. The content remains unbiased and authentic.Also See#network
Apple Macbook Mac Address
#settings
Wifi Mac Address Macbook Pro
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