How to obtain MAC address of WiFi network interface?

Question

It seems the java.net.NetworkInterface implementation of android does not have a
byte[] getHardwareAddress() method http://developer.android.com/reference/java/net/NetworkInterface.html

I've found several forums of people trying to do this with no definitive answer, I need to get a somewhat cross-device UUID, so I can't rely on phone numbers or in ANDROID_ID (which can be overwritten and which I think depends on the user having a google account) http://developer.android.com/reference/android/provider/Settings.Secure.html#ANDROID_ID

In linux you can use ifconfig or read from /proc/net/arp and you can easily get the Hardware address.

Is there a file in android that I can read?

There has to be a way to get this address since it's shown in the "Settings > About Phone > Status" of the phone.

I posted here working solution https://stackoverflow.com/a/47789324/5330408 — Android Developer, Dec 13 '17 at 10:32

score 96 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 06 '10 at 09:19

96

Late answer, but it can help others with the same "problem".

The answer is really straight forward:

WifiManager wifiMan = (WifiManager) this.getSystemService(
                Context.WIFI_SERVICE);
WifiInfo wifiInf = wifiMan.getConnectionInfo();
String macAddr = wifiInf.getMacAddress();

The above code will get you the MAC address of your device, remember to have wifi enabled when grabbing the address. This code snippet should be used in your Activity.

answered Aug 06 '10 at 09:19

Tobiaswk

960
1
7
6

23

just to add some detail, you will have to add an appropriate permission to androidManifest.xml to get it to work: – rony l Feb 27 '11 at 13:15
2

Not necesary to have wifi enabled to get MAC address. I get it with wifi off. – jzafrilla Sep 19 '13 at 11:31

score 23 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 08 '10 at 15:34

23

There has to be a way to get this address since it's shown in the "Settings > About Phone > Status" of the phone.

Which means, if nothing else, you can go putter around the Android open source code, perhaps using Google Code Search, to figure out where it pulls that from.

Doing a bit of puttering myself, it would appear it is using getMacAddress() from WifiInfo.

answered Apr 08 '10 at 15:34

CommonsWare

986,068
189
2,389
2,491

That code can be found here https://github.com/android/platform_packages_apps_settings/blob/master/src/com/android/settings/wifi/AdvancedWifiSettings.java#L253-L265 – fernandohur Dec 11 '13 at 15:43

score 10 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:53

10

UPDATE:

Beginning Android 6.0, above API will give you constant MAC address for all the devices, which is 02:00:00:00:00:00. Refer below for details
http://developer.android.com/about/versions/marshmallow/android-6.0-changes.html
Found another post that claims to find MAC address in 6.0, not tested it though
How to get Wi-Fi Mac address in Android Marshmallow

edited May 23 '17 at 11:53

Community

1
1

answered Mar 30 '16 at 04:56

Kaps

2,345
2
26
37

I used solution to get my own mac address from https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33103798/how-to-get-wi-fi-mac-address-in-android-marshmallow on physical mobiles with Android 6, 7 and 8 and it works – cesargastonec Nov 14 '20 at 22:42

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 02 '19 at 07:01

2

On Android Q, there is no way to access mac address anymore.

WifiInfo.getMacAddress() will always return 02:00:00:00:00:00.

And WifiConfiguration.getRandomizedMacAddress() will not available anymore.

answered Jul 02 '19 at 07:01

fawkes

620
1
5
5

Solution from https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33103798/how-to-get-wi-fi-mac-address-in-android-marshmallow to get my own mac address works for me on an Android 10 emulator – cesargastonec Nov 14 '20 at 22:44

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Jan 06 '21 at 08:59

this my code and work well in android 5 +.

public static String getMacAddress() {
    try {
        List<NetworkInterface> all = Collections.list(NetworkInterface.getNetworkInterfaces());
        for (NetworkInterface nif : all) {
            if (!nif.getName().equalsIgnoreCase("wlan0")) continue;

            byte[] macBytes = nif.getHardwareAddress();
            if (macBytes == null) {
                return "";
            }
            StringBuilder res1 = new StringBuilder();
            for (byte b : macBytes) {
                // res1.append(Integer.toHexString(b & 0xFF) + ":");
                res1.append(String.format("%02X:",b));
            }
            if (res1.length() > 0) {
                res1.deleteCharAt(res1.length() - 1);
            }
            return res1.toString();
        }
    } catch (Exception ex) {
        //handle exception
    }
    return "";
}

duplicate https://stackoverflow.com/a/35830358/2826147 – Amit Vaghela Feb 24 '21 at 05:29 — Amit Vaghela, Feb 24 '21 at 05:29

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Jan 17 '18 at 12:12

0

Add Following Permission.

 <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_WIFI_STATE" />

WifiManager initialize in onCreate.

 WifiManager wifiMgr = (WifiManager) getContext().getSystemService(context.WIFI_SERVICE);

Use following function.

 public void WI-FI_MAC() {
    WifiInfo wifiInfo = wifiMgr.getConnectionInfo();
    String macAddress = wifiInfo.getMacAddress();
    }

answered Jan 17 '18 at 12:12

Quantum4U

35
4

2

This returns the same address as the adapter's (`02:00:00:00:00:00`) – User May 08 '19 at 21:20
It's a restriction introduced in Android 6.0 – cesargastonec Nov 14 '20 at 22:46

How to obtain MAC address of WiFi network interface?

6 Answers6

Linked