What is a public IP address?

Every device that connects to the internet is assigned an IP (Internet Protocol) address by its network. Your public IP address is the address that websites and servers see when you make a request — it belongs to your router or network gateway, not the device itself. It is how the rest of the internet knows where to send data back to you.

There are two versions of IP addresses in common use today. IPv4 uses 32-bit numbers written in four dot-separated octets (e.g. 203.0.113.42) and supports about 4.3 billion unique addresses. IPv6 uses 128-bit numbers written in eight colon-separated groups of hex digits (e.g. 2001:0db8:85a3::8a2e:0370:7334) and provides a virtually unlimited address space to accommodate the growing number of internet-connected devices.

Tool description

IP Checker detects and displays your current public IPv4 and IPv6 addresses by making a secure server-side request on your behalf. Each time you click the button, it fetches fresh results and appends them to a timestamped history log, so you can compare addresses over time or confirm whether your IP has changed after switching networks or using a VPN.

Features

  • Dual-stack detection — retrieves both your IPv4 and IPv6 addresses in a single request, showing "not available" where a version is unsupported by your network.
  • History log — every lookup is recorded in a table with its timestamp, letting you track IP changes across sessions.
  • Copy to clipboard — IPv4 and IPv6 fields each have a one-click copy button for quickly sharing or pasting your address.

How it works

When you click the fetch button, the browser sends a request to the tool's backend endpoint. The server inspects the incoming connection to determine your remote IPv4 and IPv6 addresses and returns both. Because the lookup happens server-side, it is not affected by client-side JavaScript restrictions that can limit direct IP detection in the browser.

FAQ

Why is my IPv6 address missing? Many internet service providers and networks still only assign IPv4 addresses, or they use IPv4-only tunnels. If your network does not support IPv6, no IPv6 address will be detected.

Will the IP address change when I use a VPN? Yes. A VPN routes your traffic through a different server, so the detected IP will be that of the VPN server rather than your real network address.