Updated 2 hours ago
You'd think you'd know your own address. But your public IP—the one the Internet sees—isn't something your computer knows. It's assigned to your router by your ISP. Everything in your home shares it. And to find out what it is, you have to ask someone outside your network to tell you what they see.
You have to ask a mirror.
Ask the Internet What It Sees
The fastest method: visit a server and ask what address your request came from.
Connected's What Is My IP Address tool shows your public IPv4 address, your IPv6 address if you have one, your ISP, and your approximate location.
Why does this work? When you request that page, the server sees where the request originated and reflects it back. You're asking the Internet to describe you.
Alternatives: icanhazip.com, ifconfig.me, or searching "what is my IP" in Google. They all work the same way.
Command Line: Skip the Browser
If you live in the terminal:
curl queries web services directly:
dig asks DNS servers instead:
PowerShell on Windows:
These return plain text—just the address. Useful for scripts that need to detect or react to IP changes.
Your Router Already Knows
Your router negotiates with your ISP to get a public IP, so it knows what it is.
Navigate to your router's admin interface (usually 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1), log in, and look for WAN, Internet, or Status sections. Your public IP will be listed there.
This method matters when you're already configuring port forwarding or firewall rules—you're in the place where you'd use that IP anyway.
What Makes This Tricky
Your IP probably changes. Most home connections use dynamic addressing. Reboot your router, ISP maintenance, random Tuesday—any of these might give you a new address. If you need consistency, you'll need a static IP from your ISP (usually costs extra) or a dynamic DNS service that tracks the changes.
You might have two addresses. One IPv4 (like 98.45.67.89), one IPv6 (like 2001:0db8:85a3::8a2e:0370:7334). The Internet ran out of IPv4 addresses years ago and has been transitioning to IPv6 ever since. Most networks now support both.
Privacy tools hide it. VPNs, proxies, and browser privacy features make websites see a different IP than your actual one. That's their job. Command-line tools bypass browser privacy layers and show your real public IP—useful for verifying whether your VPN is actually working.
Why This Matters
Your public IP is the return address on every packet you send. Without it, the Internet wouldn't know where to send responses.
You can't troubleshoot what you can't see. When remote access fails, when a service blocks you, when you need to whitelist your connection—you need to know your public IP.
And now you know how to find it: ask a mirror.
Frequently Asked Questions About Finding Your Public IP Address
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