How to Find My IP Address on My Phone

Your phone’s IP address allows it to connect to the internet and communicate with other devices on a network. Knowing your device’s IP can be useful for troubleshooting connectivity issues or managing network connections. This comprehensive guide explains what an IP address is, the difference between public and private IP addresses, provides instructions for finding your phone’s IP on both iPhone and Android devices, and compares IPv4 vs IPv6 addresses.

What is an IP Address?

An Internet Protocol (IP) address is a unique numeric identifier assigned to a device connected to a network or the Internet. It allows the device to be recognized by other machines and systems and be located or addressed.

IP addresses work similarly to postal addresses – they provide a way for data packets to find and communicate with a specific endpoint. Just as each home can be uniquely identified by its street address, each device on a network needs its own IP address.

There are two primary types of IP addresses used by consumer devices:

• Public IP Address – A globally routable address that uniquely identifies a device on the public internet. It allows the device to communicate with other systems outside its network.
• Private IP Address – An IP address used internally within a private network, usually behind a router performing Network Address Translation (NAT). Private IPs are commonly used by home and business networks.

Consumer devices typically have a private IP address assigned by the local network router that allows them to communicate with other devices on the same network. They also use the public IP address of the router to interact with external servers and systems on the internet.

Understanding if you are looking for the public or private IP address of your phone is key to finding the correct identifier.

How to Find My Public IP Address

Your public IP reveals your phone’s identity to external sites and services on the internet. Here are a few ways to find your public IP address on mobile devices:

• Use a Website – There are various sites like What Is My IP Address that will show your public IP address. Simply open the site on your phone’s browser and it will display your current public IP.
• Install an IP Address App – You also can install apps on the App Store and Google Play Store that can scan your public IP. Popular apps like  IP Address, IP Tools, My IP, etc. Install one and open it to view your public IP.
• Check through Settings – On some Android phones, you can find info about your public IP address through the connection and network settings. Go to Settings > Connections > WiFi > Advanced > IP address to view it.
• Enable a Widget – Some Android widgets like “IP Address Widget” can enable a persistent public IP indicator on your home screen. So you can always view it at a glance.

As long as your phone has an internet connection via mobile data or WiFi, these methods will show your public IP address used to communicate with external servers. This address can dynamically change based on your network.

How to Find Your Phone’s IP Address

To find the IP address assigned specifically to your phone within your local network, you will need to check your phone’s WiFi connection details:

How to Find IP Address of Android Smartphone

1. Go to “Settings” on your Android phone.
2. Select “Connections” or “Network & internet”.
3. Choose “Wi-Fi”.
4. Tap on the WiFi network you are currently connected to.
5. Find and note down the “IP address” listed here – this is your phone’s IP address on the network.

Alternatively, if your Android phone is rooted, you can use the Terminal Emulator app or ADB shell to directly check the IP address with ip addr show command.

How to Find IP Address of iPhone

1. Open the “Settings” app on your iPhone.
2. Select “Wi-Fi”.
3. Tap on the ‘i’ icon next to the WiFi network you are connected to.
4. Find and note down the IP Address listed here for your iPhone.

This IP address allows your phone to directly communicate with other smart devices on the same network like printers, smart speakers, media centers etc.

Public vs Private IP Addresses

As mentioned before, the key difference is:

• Public IP Address – This unique address can be seen by any device on the internet. It allows direct communication between your phone and external servers.
• Private IP Address – This address is used internally within your local network and for communicating with other local connected devices. Private IPs are not accessible from the public internet.

Your phone uses its private IP to talk to your WiFi router. The router then uses its public IP when enabling your phone to access the wider internet.

Understanding this difference helps explain why you may see different IP addresses for your phone depending on whether you are checking its public internet connectivity or local network connection details.

Difference Between IPv4 vs IPv6 Addresses

IP addresses also come in two common protocol versions – IPv4 and IPv6:

• IPv4 (Internet Protocol Version 4) – This format consists of four octets of 8-bit integers separated by dots. For e.g. 192.168.2.5. IPv4 has been used from the early days of the internet.
• IPv6 (Internet Protocol Version 6) – This newer address format consists of 128-bit hexadecimal values separated by colons to expand the available address space. For e.g. 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334.
• The exponential expansion of the internet has created a shortage of IPv4 addresses. So IPv6 was developed with exponentially more options to assign addresses.

Most consumer internet traffic still uses IPv4 addressing. But IPv6 adoption is increasing to provide enough unique addresses for the growth in IoT devices and internet usage.

When checking your phone’s IP address, you may see either protocol version depending on whether your network supports IPv6 or the older IPv4 standard.

Conclusion

Finding your phone’s IP address is easy if you know where to check based on whether you want your public or private IP. The private IP helps identify your phone’s connection on local networks while the public IP represents its online identity. Checking your phone’s IP can provide insight for troubleshooting connectivity or usage issues.

The expansion to IPv6 also aims to prepare IP addresses for exponential future internet growth. As more networks adopt IPv6, you may notice these newer formatted addresses when analyzing your phone’s network communication data.