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I am unable to change my MAC address using sudo ifconfig en0 ether xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx. I was previously able to do it before I completely erased my Mac and reinstalled macOS Catalina.

Does anyone know how to change it and why its not changing? Thanks!

nohillside
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Todd
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1 Answers1

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Your command is correct, once you've prepared the network to be changed. Temporarily power down the WiFi before changing the address.

Doesn’t work on newer macbooks (2018 and later)

networksetup -setairportpower en0 off

Modify the mac address with the desired value:

sudo ifconfig en0 ether 88:63:11:11:11:11

Finally, turn on the WiFi

networksetup -setairportpower en0 on

I verified with Catalina 10.15.4 and 10.15.5

uname -a
Darwin iMac.local 19.4.0 Darwin Kernel Version 19.4.0: Wed Mar  4 22:28:40 PST 2020; root:xnu-6153.101.6~15/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64
sw_vers
ProductName:    Mac OS X
ProductVersion: 10.15.5
BuildVersion:   19F101
Community
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elulcao
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    What is the difference to the command the OP tried? – nohillside Apr 14 '20 at 19:44
  • Do you mean sudo ifconfig en0 down sudo ifconfig en0 ether xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx sudo ifconfig en0 up? – Todd Apr 14 '20 at 23:46
  • To power of WiFi use: 
    networksetup -setairportpower en0 off
    – elulcao Apr 15 '20 at 03:23
  • Also notice that my iMac is SIP enabled: 
    elulcao@iMac  ~  sudo csrutil status
System Integrity Protection status: enabled.
    – elulcao Apr 15 '20 at 03:26
  • In Catalina 10.15.7, this results in ifconfig: ioctl (SIOCAIFADDR): Device power is off – gmw Jul 16 '22 at 08:29
  • @gmw That's because your device is powered off. Turn WiFi device off, turn the WiFi device on networksetup -setairportpower en0 on and then use ifconfig. – elulcao Jul 17 '22 at 19:15