MAC Address Regex Pattern

Match and validate MAC (Media Access Control) addresses in colon-separated, dash-separated, and dot-separated formats using regex.

The Pattern

/\b(?:[0-9A-Fa-f]{2}[:-]){5}[0-9A-Fa-f]{2}\b/g

Try it →

How It Works

Token	Meaning
`\b`	Word boundary to prevent partial matches
`[0-9A-Fa-f]{2}`	Exactly 2 hexadecimal characters (one octet)
`[:-]`	Colon or dash separator between octets
`{5}`	Repeat the octet-separator group 5 times
`[0-9A-Fa-f]{2}`	Final octet (no trailing separator)

Test Cases

✅00:1A:2B:3C:4D:5EMatch

✅AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FFMatch

✅00-1A-2B-3C-4D-5EMatch

✅ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ffMatch

❌00:1A:2B:3C:4DNo match

❌GG:HH:II:JJ:KK:LLNo match

❌001A2B3C4D5ENo match

Code Examples

javascript

const macRegex = /\b(?:[0-9A-Fa-f]{2}[:-]){5}[0-9A-Fa-f]{2}\b/g;
const text = "Devices: 00:1A:2B:3C:4D:5E and AA-BB-CC-DD-EE-FF";
const matches = text.match(macRegex);
console.log(matches); // ["00:1A:2B:3C:4D:5E", "AA-BB-CC-DD-EE-FF"]

python

import re
mac_regex = r'\b(?:[0-9A-Fa-f]{2}[:-]){5}[0-9A-Fa-f]{2}\b'
text = "Devices: 00:1A:2B:3C:4D:5E and AA-BB-CC-DD-EE-FF"
matches = re.findall(mac_regex, text)
print(matches)  # ['00:1A:2B:3C:4D:5E', 'AA-BB-CC-DD-EE-FF']

Common Use Cases

Network administration - validate MAC address inputs
Device tracking - extract MAC addresses from DHCP logs
Security audits - identify devices by MAC address in logs
IoT management - parse device identifiers from configuration

Related Patterns

IPv4 Address UUID Hex Color Code

Want to test this pattern with your own data?

Try this pattern in Regex Tester →