How To Find Someone From Their Ip Address
Inside Secrets About IP Address Geolocation
Should you worry about being tracked?
We’re all familiar with the cartoon, “Where’s Waldo? ” As you know, it’s not always easy to find the character in the red and white striped shirt, glasses and ski cap.
Using top-tier geolocation, authorities can track down Waldo the instant he’s online.
It’s about the same with Waldo’s IP address (even if it is fictional). If he sent you an email with a picture of himself buried in a crowd, you might find him in the picture…but how would you know where he’s geographically located?
Impossible, right?
No. Not as impossible as you might think.
Geolocation lookup.
Through a useful Internet tool called IP geolocation lookup, you can track an IP address close to someone’s exact location, if they’re communicating with you through the Internet…and if you want or need to know where they really are.
You can get pretty close, depending on a variety of factors, to finding the physical location of someone’s IP address (if you can capture it).
Need proof? Let’s see where you are, in real time, right now.
Where are you?
Go to our IP Lookup (which is an IP location finder or tracker) to see where you show up on the map. If you allow your browser to update your location (when it asks you) the geolocation accuracy gets even better.
You can get a good idea of the where someone is emailing you from using a geolocation tool, like the one right on our site (see IP Lookup). And that, for the most part, should be good enough. It will not give you anyone’s name and address, but it’s not supposed to. That would be a violation of their privacy… and a little too creepy.
But you’d be surprised at how close geolocation can sometimes “zoom in” on you.
Zeroing In
When you came to the website, you saw that your IP address was conveniently displayed on the home page. And you also saw—maybe surprisingly—that other information was displayed, such as your:
Country
Region
City
ZIP code
Longitude and latitude
Whoa! Where did that come from?
It came from the IP address geolocation service used to look at the IP address of wherever you were when you visited our site.
“Based on his IP address, we know
he’s within 2 miles. ”
The IP address you saw could be your home computer’s IP address, or the one at the local coffee shop or airport. It all depends on where you are.
Are you feeling creeped out? You don’t have to be.
Learning more about the Internet
You can also look at this as a way to get educated on the power of the Internet and the tools that you (and others) can use to keep safe. (Read our section on Change IP Address and Hide IP Address. ) After all, your name, street address, nickname or favorite color were not revealed. Chances are, your location was, at best, some five or six miles away from your home.
And does anybody care where you are? No, not unless you’re Waldo.
Still, even when not pinpoint accurate, geolocation usually puts a computer user in a nearby town or area, which may be good enough for the person who wants to know where the curious email they received was actually sent from. Check out Trace Email.
Super geolocation accuracy drills down to your Zip Code, and sometimes even down to your kitchen window.
And that person might be you. In other words, you may want to find the IP address of someone who emails you, run it through a high accuracy geolocation service and get closer to zeroing on their location. Maybe not the exact location of their IP address, but with great accuracy.
And that means you can locate Waldo and even direct him to the nearest mall to get a new shirt.
Get hidden now. »» I want to hide my IP
How Geolocation Works
Geolocation Database Providers
Update your geolocation
Check an IP’s location
What Does Your IP Address Tell The World About You?
As you probably already know, your IP address is the address or logical location of your computer when it’s connected to the Internet. Networking software/hardware must know your IP address for you to connect and go online. Thankfully, you don’t need to know your IP address every time and enter it in, like a password. However, if you ever want to know what it is, you can find out quickly by going to
Websites and networks also need to know your IP address, in the digital way that computers do. IP addresses are part of TCP/IP, the protocols that networks speak that allow us all to get online. Think of it as a common digital language.
And while it’s somewhat rare for an individual to need or want your IP address, there are ways for them to get it. In fact, almost anyone that you email could find yours out.
But what is it they would get? Click here to find out.
It’s no secret.
A lot of people worry that their IP address might reveal their name, home address, age, what they look at online and more. That’s just not the case. Sure, they might find out some interesting information, but nothing revealing.
Let’s show you what you can discover by running a real IP address through the IP Lookup feature at You can use a random IP address for the test—even yours. But for this exercise, we’ll use 68. 4. 39. 37.
IP Details
This number is the IP address of a computer/router that’s connected to the Internet somewhere in Southern California. If there is a single computer on that account, it’s the IP address linked to the computer. If the computer is connected to a router, it’s the router’s address.
The IP Lookup feature isn’t linked to an extensive Internet directory. It’s not like the landline phone system, where you could grab a phone directory or call the telephone operator and try to match a name and street address to a telephone number. (Talk about a lack of privacy! )
In the Internet world, there’s no such thing—not for an ordinary citizen and not even for law enforcement, without a subpoena.
IP Lookup in action.
When you visit the IP Lookup page and paste an address into the empty box, here’s what you’ll find out:
The first time you see the IP details—especially your city, ZIP code and the area code of where you live—it can be a bit a surprising. The IP details aren’t always close. They can be hundreds of miles off, and if the person is using a VPN and a different IP address, the information can be highly inaccurate.
But it’s important to see what you don’t get in the IP details, and never will. You don’t see any real information about the person who is using that assigned IP address, including a street name and address. You will get the name of the Internet Service Provider that serves the domain name…in this case, the cable company Cox Communications. In most cases, knowing the name of the ISP is all that somebody wants to know.
Getting to the source.
There are a handful of practical reasons people use IP Lookup, even with its limitations:
Law enforcement and fraud investigators use online tools to see what ISP is hosting a spammer.
Blacklist databases use it to find spammers or other violators and block their access to email servers.
Retailers often use IP Lookup to make sure someone charging thousands of dollars is at the mailing address linked to the card…and not actually overseas with a stolen credit account.
You can use it to verify that someone who tells you in an email that they’re across town isn’t really in an abandoned warehouse in another country.
Find out what can be seeing about your IP address by clicking here.
Get hidden now. »» I want to hide my IP
Related Articles
What is an IP Address?
Can Someone Find Me?
How Someone Can Get Your IP Address
IP Address Lookup Tool
How do I Hide my IP Address?
Instant IP Address Lookup
tool-ip-look-upIP
Look up IP Address Location
If you can find out the IPv4 or IPv6 address of an Internet user, you can get an idea what part of the country or world they’re in by using our IP Lookup tool. What to do: Enter the IP address you’re curious about in the box below, then click “Get IP Details. ”
How to get someone’s IP address
Once you have an IP address it is as easy as pasting and clicking above. But if you don’t know how to get someone’s IP address read: 11 Ways To Get Someone’s IP Address
What you will get with this tool
The ISP and organization’s name
The IP’s host name
The country it’s in
The region/state
The city (see below)
The latitude and longitude of the location (a best guess)
The area code for that region
Any known services running on that IP
You won’t get anything like…
A person’s name
The exact location or street address
A phone number
Their email address
That’s where privacy issues come in, which are there to protect Internet users like you.
In countries outside the US and Europe the accuracy for the city level 25mile/40km radius is around 55%.
Your private information is exposed!
Frequently Asked Questions about how to find someone from their ip address
How can I locate someone by their IP address?
A lot of people worry that their IP address might reveal their name, home address, age, what they look at online and more. That’s just not the case. Sure, they might find out some interesting information, but nothing revealing. … You can use a random IP address for the test—even yours.
