How To Temporarily Change Android MAC Address Without Rooting?

WHAT IS MAC ADDRESS?

Media Access Control (MAC) address is a unique code made up of 12 characters of the format XX: XX: XX: XX: XX: XX used for a particular hardware like a network adapter of Wi-Fi devices.

ADVANTAGES/NEED OF CHANGING MAC ADDRESS:

Changing MAC Address on helps in protecting user privacy and also enables for smooth interoperability.

Changing Mac address is particularly useful when say connecting to a public Wi-Fi Hotspot to protect your privacy as public Wi-Fi generally have weaker security measures.

Another instance when you may require the change of MAC address is when you want to change your network card or want to install a new router. The ISP to your workplace provide their internet service binded to a particular address, and when you change your card/router the service might not work anymore. To solve this problem you need to change the MAC address of the new interface.

TUTORIAL FOR CHANGING ANDROID MAC ADDRESS

This tutorial is just for changing the mac address temporarily therefore whenever you will reboot your device you will need to go through the steps below again.

1.Before changing the mac address of your android device the first and foremost important thing to do is to know the existing mac address of your android device. To find that just go to the settings and scroll down to About Device and click on Status. In the status setting you will be able to find the Wi-Fi-MAC address mentioned. An alternative way is to go to the Wi-Fi Settings and going further into the advanced settings where you can find the MAC address.

2.The next step is to install a free application called Terminal Emulator for Android from the Google Play store. After installing it you need to know the name of your network card to change the MAC address. So in the built in command line shell type in

ip link show

3.You will see a list of different interfaces. On the list match the address of the MAC address you have on your device. After that is done to change the existing mac address to the temporary address just type the following commands in the command line:

ip link set AAAA address XX:XX:XX:YY:YY:YY

ip link set AAAA broadcast XX:XX:XX:YY:YY:YY.

Where,

AAAA: name of the interface to be change

XX: XX: XX: YY: YY: YY : the new temporary mac address to be assigned to the device.

(One important thing to be kept in mind is that the mac address comprises only of numbers/alphabets. It won’t accept special characters or any other characters).

Now to check the changes made, type the following command:

Ip link show AAAA

Another really important thing to keep in mind is that while denoting the new address is that only the last 3 sets of the mac address should be changed. The first 3 sets are kept same as before. If the first three sets are changed there might be issues of authentication problem.