MAC address formatter
Reformat a MAC address between colon, dash, Cisco dotted, and bare forms. See the vendor OUI and whether the address is unicast or locally administered.
Any style works: 00:1a:2b:3c:4d:5e, 00-1a-2b-..., 001a.2b3c.4d5e, or bare hex.
Same address, four punctuations
Every vendor and operating system seems to write MAC addresses differently. Windows uses dashes, Linux and IEEE docs use colons, Cisco uses dotted groups of four, and log files often strip the separators entirely. When you are copying a MAC from one tool into another, the format almost never matches, and that is where this converter helps.
Paste a MAC in any style and it returns all four forms plus two useful facts. The OUI is the first three bytes, which the IEEE assigns to a hardware maker. The unicast and locally-administered flags come from two bits in the first byte, and they tell you whether the address is a real vendor address or a virtual or randomized one. For IP-side conversions, see the IP converter.
Frequently asked questions
What are the different MAC address formats?
The common ones are colon (00:1a:2b:3c:4d:5e), dash (00-1a-2b-3c-4d-5e), Cisco dotted (001a.2b3c.4d5e), and bare (001a2b3c4d5e). They hold the same 48 bits, just punctuated differently.
What is the OUI in a MAC address?
The first three bytes are the Organizationally Unique Identifier, assigned by the IEEE to a hardware vendor. The last three bytes identify the specific device.
How can I tell if a MAC is locally administered?
Check the second-least-significant bit of the first byte. If it is set, the address is locally administered (often a virtual or randomized MAC) rather than a universal vendor address.
What is a multicast MAC address?
If the least-significant bit of the first byte is 1, the MAC is a multicast (group) address. If it is 0, it is a unicast address for a single interface.