How to Get a List of PCs and Other Devices on Your Local Wired/Wireless Network

If you want to find out which of your devices have successully connected to your local network or if someone is using your bandwidth without letting you know about it, you can scan your network the geeky way by entering command-lines in PowerShell, or the easy way by using specialized tools.



We're breaking down three networking utilities that can be used for free, and we're thus showing you how to find all devices connected to your local network and details such as IP and MAC addresses, as well as to save info to file to examine it later: Advanced IP Scanner, Wireless Network Watcher, and SoftPerfect Network Scanner.


Advanced IP Scanner

In the main window of Advanced IP Scanner, click the box with 10.10.0.1 - 10.10.0.254 as well as turn the last number of the first address into 0 and the last number of the second address into 5 (10.10.0.0 - 10.0.0.255). Click the Scan button on the toolbar to begin network sniffing.

As soon as the hosts are found, they are revealed one by one in the main window. You can view their Name, local IP address, Manufacturer name, and MAC address. Click the arrow button next to an entry's icon (in the Status column) to expand that entry and view shared folders (if any).
Open the File menu and click Save as or press Ctrl+S to export all displayed information to file with the XML, HTML or CSV format after indicating the saving directory and filename.


Wireless Network Watcher

After firing up Wireless Network Watcher, it shows an Advanced Options window. The Use the following network adapter is ticked by default. Click its menu to choose a network interface to scan, leave the rest of the options unchecked, and click Ok to proceed.

In the main window, click the green play button on the toolbar to start scanning your network, open the File menu and choose Start scanning or press F5.
Just like Advanced IP Scanner, Wireless Network Watcher lists the detected devices connected to your network one by one in this window. You can find out their local IP address, Device Name, MAC address, Network Adapter Company, date and time when they were First Detected On and Last Detected On, how many times they have been identified by Wireless Network Watcher (Detection Count) and whether or not they're still Active.
Open the File menu and choose Save All Items or press Shift+Ctrl+S to save the information about all hosts in a file with the TXT, CSV, HTML or XML extension by specifying where you want to save the file and what to call it.


SoftPerfect Network Scanner

After running SoftPerfect Network Scanner, open the Options menu and IP Address submenu to click Auto Detect Local IP Range. This action brings up the Auto Detect window, where you can select a network interface to scan. You can tell them apart by Adapter name, IP Address and Network Mask. Click Ok to apply options and return to the main window.

Next, click the Start Scanning button. Similar to Advanced IP Scanner and Wireless Network Watcher, SoftPerfect Network Scanner populates the list of hosts one by one as soon as they are identified. You can check out their local IP address, MAC address, Response time (milliseconds) and Host Name.
Click the + button before the IP address of a host to expand its column and view shared directories. Open the File menu and select Save Results or press Ctrl+S to export details about all hosts to file once you indicate the output directory and filename.
Check out our video below to find out how to easily scan all devices connected to your network as well as to save info to file using these three apps. You can also download Advanced IP Scanner, Wireless Network Watcher, and SoftPerfect Network Scanner.