What Is My IP Address, and Why Might It Show Two Different Answers?

This article summarizes general networking information for informational purposes. Specific steps may vary slightly by device, operating system version, and network configuration.

Key Takeaways

• Most devices today have two IP addresses at once — an IPv4 address (like 82.64.12.45) and an IPv6 address (a longer string like 2a01:cb00:8a2:f300::1) — running simultaneously in what's called a "dual stack" connection.
• Your public IP address is what websites and services see when you connect to them; your private IP address (commonly starting with 192.168) only identifies your device within your own home or office network and is invisible to the outside internet.
• A VPN masks your IP by routing your traffic through its own server, but a surprisingly common and often-unnoticed failure mode is an IPv6 leak: if a VPN doesn't properly tunnel IPv6 traffic, your real IPv6 address and location can stay exposed even while your IPv4 address appears hidden.
• Your IP address reveals your approximate location (based on where your internet provider registered the address block, not GPS) and your internet service provider, but not your exact street address or personal identity on its own.
• If your IPv4 and IPv6 location results don't match while using a VPN, that mismatch itself is the sign of a leak — checking both, not just one, is the only way to confirm a VPN is actually working as intended.

IPv4 vs. IPv6: why you likely have both

Every device connected to the internet needs an IP address to send and receive data, but there are two different addressing systems in active use today, and most connections run both simultaneously. IPv4, the older and more familiar system, represents an address as four numbers separated by dots — something like 82.64.12.45. It was designed decades ago with a hard limit of roughly 4.3 billion unique addresses, a number that sounded enormous at the time but has long since proven too small for a world with billions of connected phones, computers, and smart devices.

IPv6 was built specifically to solve that scarcity problem, using a vastly larger 128-bit address space displayed as eight groups of hexadecimal characters separated by colons, such as 2a01:cb00:8a2:f300::1. Because the transition from IPv4 to IPv6 has taken years and still isn't complete worldwide, most modern internet connections now run both systems at once — a setup called "dual stack" — which is exactly why checking your IP address today often shows you two different-looking results rather than one.

Public vs. private: the IP address that matters for privacy

It's worth clearly separating two concepts that get confused constantly: your public IP address and your private IP address. Your public IP is the one assigned by your internet service provider and visible to every website and online service you connect to — this is the address people generally mean when asking "what is my IP address," and it's what a privacy or location lookup tool actually detects. Your private IP address, by contrast, typically starts with 192.168 and only identifies your specific device within your own home or office network; it's invisible to anything outside your local network and isn't used for anything on the broader internet.

If you've ever looked up your IP and seen something starting with 192.168, that's your private address, not the one that matters for understanding what the outside internet can see about your connection.

What your IP address actually reveals — and what it doesn't

A public IP address can reveal a genuinely useful but limited set of information: your approximate geographic location, and your internet service provider. It's worth understanding exactly how that location data works, though, since it's a common source of confusion — the location tied to an IP address comes from databases mapping blocks of addresses to specific places, not from GPS tracking, and providers sometimes register an entire block of addresses to the city where their central equipment sits, which can be meaningfully different from where you're actually sitting.

What a bare IP address does not reveal on its own is your exact street address, your name, or other directly identifying personal information — though in combination with other data (something a website might separately collect, like account information or tracking cookies), it can become part of a broader profile. That distinction matters for calibrating how concerned to be: an IP address alone is a privacy consideration worth understanding, not an immediate, acute threat.

The VPN leak most people never check for

If you use a VPN specifically to mask your IP address, there's a genuinely important and widely overlooked failure mode worth understanding: IPv6 leaks. A VPN works by routing your traffic through its own server, so websites see the VPN server's address instead of yours — but some VPN services only properly handle IPv4 traffic, leaving your real IPv6 address running normally and fully exposed alongside your masked IPv4 address, entirely without your knowledge.

The practical sign of this problem is a mismatch: if you check your IP address while connected to a VPN and your IPv4 location shows one place while your IPv6 location shows somewhere else entirely (likely your real location), that discrepancy means your VPN isn't tunneling IPv6 traffic properly, and any website or app that supports IPv6 can see straight past the VPN to your actual connection. If your VPN doesn't offer full IPv6 support, the practical fix is disabling IPv6 entirely in your device's network settings — since devices generally prefer IPv6 over IPv4 when both are available, simply turning it off forces all traffic through the IPv4 connection your VPN is actually protecting.

How to check your own IP address

Checking your current public IP address is straightforward on any device: visiting any dedicated "what is my IP" website will display it automatically, without requiring any technical steps, generally showing both your IPv4 and IPv6 addresses (if you have both) along with your detected location and internet service provider. For your private IP address specifically, the lookup differs by platform — on Windows, it's found under your network connection's details in Settings; on an iPhone, it's listed under Wi-Fi settings for your connected network; similar paths exist for Mac and Android, generally nested within the network or Wi-Fi settings menu.

What this means if you're checking your IP right now

• If you're verifying a VPN is working, check both your IPv4 and IPv6 results, not just one. A mismatch between the two is the clearest sign of a leak that a single-address check would miss entirely.
• If your IP location looks wrong, don't assume something is broken. Because location data comes from address-block registration rather than GPS, a result showing a nearby city instead of your exact location is normal and doesn't indicate a problem with your connection.
• If privacy is your main concern, understand what an IP address can and can't reveal on its own. It's a real piece of information about your location and provider, but it's not, by itself, equivalent to exposing your identity or exact address.
• If you're troubleshooting a VPN leak and it doesn't offer full IPv6 support, disabling IPv6 in your device settings is the most direct fix — it's a blunt solution, but an effective one, since it removes the unprotected pathway entirely rather than leaving it exposed alongside your VPN connection.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do I have two different IP addresses showing up? Most internet connections today run both IPv4 and IPv6 simultaneously, a configuration called dual stack — so checking your IP address typically shows one of each rather than a single result, which is completely normal rather than a sign of a problem.

Can someone find my exact address if they know my IP address? Not directly — an IP address on its own reveals your approximate location (generally city-level, based on how your provider registered the address block) and your internet service provider, not your exact street address or personal identity.

Does using a VPN completely hide my IP address? Generally yes for IPv4 traffic, but not always for IPv6 — if your VPN doesn't properly handle IPv6, your real IPv6 address and location can remain exposed even while your IPv4 address appears masked. Checking both address types while connected is the only reliable way to confirm full protection.

What's the difference between my public and private IP address? Your public IP address is visible to the entire internet and assigned by your internet provider; your private IP address (typically starting with 192.168) only identifies your device within your own local home or office network and isn't visible outside it.

Sources & References

• Wikipedia, "IPv6 address"
• Top10VPN, "What Is My IP Address? Check Your IPv4 & IPv6 Location"
• ShowMyIP.com, "What Is My IP Address? (IPv4 & IPv6)"
• NordVPN, "What is my IP address location? See your public IP address"
• IPinfo.io, "What is my IP address?"