What is an IP Address?

An IP (Internet Protocol) address is a unique numerical identifier assigned to every device connected to a network. It serves as a digital address that allows devices to communicate with each other over the internet.

IPv4 Address Example

192.168.1.100

Four groups of numbers separated by dots

IPv6 Address Example

2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334

Eight groups of hexadecimal digits

Why Find Someone's IP Address?

  • Network Troubleshooting: Diagnose connectivity issues
  • Security Analysis: Investigate suspicious activities
  • Geolocation: Determine approximate user location
  • Access Control: Implement IP-based restrictions
  • Digital Forensics: Trace online activities

Methods to Find IP Addresses

URL Tracking

Create tracking links that capture IP addresses when clicked. Most common and effective method.

Easy Reliable

Email Tracking

Use tracking pixels in emails to capture IP addresses when emails are opened.

Moderate Stealth

Chat & Gaming Platforms

Widely written about, but no longer works on Discord, Zoom or Skype — they all relay traffic through their own servers now.

Mostly a myth Outdated advice

Server Logs

Analyze web server access logs to find IP addresses of website visitors.

Technical Legitimate

Method 1: URL Tracking (Recommended)

The most reliable and straightforward method to capture someone's IP address.

1

Choose an IP Tracking Service

Select a reliable IP logger tool

Visit IPLogger.icu or similar tracking services. These tools are specifically designed for legitimate IP tracking purposes.

2

Create Your Tracking Link

Generate a unique tracking URL

Enter a destination URL (the page you want the person to land on) and generate the link. You get back two different URLs, and it matters which one you use: a short tracking link to share, and a separate results page that only you open to read the log.

# What the generator gives you Destination URL: https://example.com Tracking link: https://grabb.site/AbC123 (share this one) Tracking code: XyZ789 Results page: https://grabify.icu/XyZ789 (keep this one to yourself)

Save the results page URL. There is no account and no login, so if you lose that URL you lose access to the data the link collects.

3

Share the Tracking Link

Send the link to your target

Share the tracking link through various channels:

  • Direct message or email
  • Social media posts
  • Forum or comment responses
  • QR codes for offline sharing
4

Monitor Results

Check the tracking dashboard

When someone opens your link they are forwarded to the destination you chose, and the visit is written to the log. Open the grabify.icu results page you saved in step 2 to see:

  • IP address and geolocation
  • Device and browser information
  • Timestamp of access
  • Referrer information

Method 2: Email Tracking

Use tracking pixels to capture IP addresses when emails are opened.

How Email Tracking Works

Email tracking involves embedding invisible images (tracking pixels) in emails. When the recipient opens the email, their email client loads the image from a tracking server, revealing their IP address.

Steps to Implement

  1. Generate a link as in Method 1 — the same result screen also gives you an Email Tracker image URL
  2. Paste that image into your email HTML as an <img> tag
  3. Send the email
  4. Check the same grabify.icu results page to see when it was opened

Example Tracking Pixel

<img src="https://grabb.site/wx/AbC123.png" width="1" height="1" style="display:none;">

Replace AbC123 with the code from your own link. Reads land on the same results page as link clicks.

Limitations

  • Many email clients block external images by default
  • Users may have privacy settings that prevent tracking
  • Corporate email systems often filter tracking pixels

Method 3: Network Commands — What They Can and Can't Do

These are the commands people are usually told to use. It is worth being clear about what they actually return, because most of that advice is wrong.

These commands will not give you a specific person's IP

You will find guides claiming that ping or tracert can reveal someone's address. They cannot:

  • ping and tracert/traceroute take a hostname you already know and resolve it through public DNS. They tell you the address of a server, not of a person. You have to know the target before you start, so they cannot be a way of finding it.
  • netstat and ss list connections on your own machine. They will show a game or chat server you are connected to — not the other people using it.
  • ipconfig and ifconfig show your own network configuration and nothing about anyone else.

What they are genuinely useful for

All four are diagnostic tools. They are worth knowing if you are checking whether a host is reachable, where along the route a connection is failing, or which local port a service is bound to.

Windows Commands

# View active connections netstat -an # Ping a domain ping example.com # Trace route to destination tracert example.com # Display network configuration ipconfig /all

Linux/Mac Commands

# View active connections ss -tuln # Ping a domain ping example.com # Trace route to destination traceroute example.com # Display network configuration ifconfig

The takeaway

If your goal is to see who opened something you sent, a tracking link (Method 1) is the only approach on this page that actually does that. The command line is for diagnosing your own connection.

Method 4: Chat and Gaming Platforms

This is the area with the most outdated advice online. Most of what used to work stopped working years ago.

Discord — no

Discord voice has run through its own relay servers for years, in DMs and in servers alike. The other party sees a Discord IP, not yours. Any "Discord IP resolver" being sold or advertised is either scraping something else or is simply a scam.

Video Calls — almost never

Zoom, Teams and similar platforms route calls through their own infrastructure by default. The old Skype resolvers everyone remembers stopped working when Microsoft moved Skype to cloud relays, and consumer Skype was retired entirely in 2025.

BitTorrent — yes, but

This one is real: in a BitTorrent swarm every peer connects directly, so peer addresses are visible to everyone in the swarm. It is not targeted, though — you see whoever happens to be sharing that file, and you cannot use it to look up a particular person.

Why this changed

Direct peer-to-peer connections used to be normal because they were cheaper and lower latency. Platforms moved to relaying traffic through their own servers partly for reliability behind NAT and firewalls, and partly because exposing user addresses to each other turned into a harassment and DDoS problem. Guides that still describe the old behaviour were usually written before that shift and never updated.

Legal and Ethical Considerations

Legal Uses

  • Network administration and troubleshooting
  • Security monitoring and incident response
  • Digital forensics investigations
  • Website analytics and visitor tracking
  • Marketing campaign analysis

Prohibited Uses

  • Harassment or stalking individuals
  • Unauthorized access attempts
  • Malicious activities or cyber attacks
  • Violating privacy laws and regulations
  • Doxxing or public disclosure of private info

How to Protect Against IP Tracking

Use VPN Services

Virtual Private Networks mask your real IP address by routing traffic through secure servers.

Proxy Servers

Route your internet traffic through proxy servers to hide your actual IP address from tracking.

Tor Browser

Use the Tor network for maximum anonymity and protection against IP tracking.

Browser Settings

Configure browser privacy settings, disable JavaScript, and block external images in emails.

Start Legitimate IP Tracking

Ready to implement professional IP tracking for legitimate purposes? Use our secure and reliable IP tracking tools.