It’s hard to know how to find my router IP address, since it’s arbitrary. Usually your router lives at one end or the other of your network, but there’s no reason why it has to. So if someone decided to get tricky, here’s how to find it.
There was a time when knowing your router IP was a matter of survival, but these days networking normally configures itself, using a technology called DHCP. That puts your router IP address out of sight and out of mind. But it turns out there are several ways to find the router IP, and some of them work no matter what kind of computer you have.
How to find my router IP address by educated guessing
Most frequently, a home router lives at 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1. So if you’re in a hurry, you can just try one of those two addresses. It’s one of those two almost 90 percent of the time.
I know of two notable exceptions to that. AT&T routers normally live at 192.168.1.254. So if you’re on a home Internet connection with AT&T as your provider, try that one first. Also, recent-ish Belkin routers may live at 192.168.2.1. So if you have a Belkin router, you can try that.
If you don’t want to play a guessing game though, you can make your computer find it for you. You don’t want to try to find it on a corporate network by guessing, because most corporate networks are monstrous. Here’s how to make the computer do the work for you.
How to find my router IP address on a Mac
If you happen to use a Mac, finding your router IP address is pretty easy once you know where to look. It only takes a few clicks.
From your Apple menu, select System Preferences and then click Network. Look in the middle of the dialog box that pops up for your network configuration. You’ll see a section labeled Router. Next to it, you’ll see an IP address.
This is one of those things Apple really did make easy.
How to find my router IP address on Windows 10
Finding your router IP address isn’t that much harder on Windows either. At least in Windows 10 it isn’t.
On Windows 10, right-click on the network icon in your system tray and click on Open Network and Internet Settings. Scroll down and click View your network properties. The tricky part here is that Windows doesn’t call your router a router. It calls it a default gateway. Just scroll down until you see Default gateway on the left-hand side, then look to the right and you’ll see an IP address.
How to find my router IP address with a Windows command prompt
Older versions of Windows don’t always make it quite that easy, or at least they aren’t consistent. So here’s how to find a router IP address from the command prompt, which works with Windows 7, Windows XP, and any other version of Windows based on Windows NT.
First, open a command prompt by hitting the windows key and the R key at the same time, then type cmd and hit enter. Then type this:
ipconfig /all
This will dump your entire network configuration. Just look for the line that starts with Default Gateway to find your router IP address.
If you want to get tricky, use this command to filter the command’s output:
ipconfig /all | findstr Gateway
This filters out all the information you don’t want. The downside with this command is that it may give you an IPv6 address if you’re on an IPv6-enabled network, and you may not want that.
How to find my router IP address in Windows 95/98
I don’t recommend Windows 95 or Windows 98 as a general purpose operating system anymore, but if you’re into retro computing and need to find your router from an old Win95 or Win98 box, issue the command winipcfg from a command prompt or from the Start menu’s Run option.
Look in the middle of winipcfg’s output to find the default gateway. That IP address is your router.
How to find my router IP address in Linux
Most Linux systems provide a graphical way to find your network setup, but the specifics will vary. Here’s a way to find it from a command prompt, which is more universal.
From a terminal window or command prompt, issue the command netstat -r -n and look at the column labeled Gateway in the first line. That’s your router IP address.
On recent Linux distributions, you can alternatively use the command ip route to find the gateway. Your router IP address will be on the first line of the command output.
How to find my router IP address with traceroute
When all else fails, here’s a trick to find my router IP address with a network tool called traceroute. This is never the easiest way, but it’ll work no matter what kind of computer you have. The trick is to traceroute to something that uses an IPv4 address, since some ISPs are fully IPv6-enabled these days. For now at least, the security provider Qualys, at qualys.com, is a safe bet to use.
On Windows, open a command prompt by hitting the windows key and the R key at the same time, then type cmd and hit enter. Then type this:
tracert qualys.com
Your router’s IP address will be in the first hop.
On a Mac, the command is a little different. Open a terminal window and type this:
traceroute qualys.com
Your router’s IP address will be in the first hop.
Linux computers also have traceroute, and it works the same way. Linux computers normally spell it out completely, like a Mac. Try it fully spelled out first.
One more trick to keep you from having to do this again
I recommend writing down your router’s IP address on a piece of paper and taping it to your router to save yourself the trouble of finding it again.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.