- How to Check for Ports in Use in Windows 10
- Use Nirsoft CurrPorts
- Command Prompt Method
- TCPView
- How to Determine What Ports are Being Used in Windows 10
- What is a Port?
- Determine What Ports are Being Used in Windows 10
- How to find out which ports are used by a program?
- 3 Answers 3
- Command line for looking at specific port
- 14 Answers 14
- What is My Port Number?
- Jump to…
- How to Find Your Port Number
- How to find ports being used in Windows
- How to find the port number on macOS
- What is a Port Number?
- TCP vs. UDP
- What is the Difference between an IP Address and a Port Number?
- Why Do I Need to Know my Port Number?
- What is an IP Address?
- How do I find the port number of a specific IP address?
- What does a port scanner do?
- Is my port open?
How to Check for Ports in Use in Windows 10
At any one time, there’s a whole bunch of information being sent between your Windows 10 PC and the endless void of the Internet. This is done using a process whereby network-dependent processes seek out TCP and UDP ports, which they use to communicate with the Internet. First, your data gets sent to remote ports at the destination or website your processes are trying to connect to, then it gets received at local ports back on your PC.
Most of the time, Windows 10 knows how to manage ports and ensure that traffic is being directed through the right ports so that those processes can connect with what they need to. But sometimes two processes may be assigned to one port, or maybe you just want to get a better picture of your network traffic and what’s going in and out.
That’s why wrote this guide that shows you how to get an overview of your ports and see which applications are using which ports.
Use Nirsoft CurrPorts
NirSoft is one of the best indie software developers, giving us great utilities, like PassView and WirelessKeyView. While some people will prefer checking their ports without installing third-party software (in which case, scroll down to the CMD method), CurrPorts is easily the fastest and most convenient way to view your ports.
Once you’ve installed CurrPorts, just open it to see a list of all your ports currently in use. If you’re looking for local ports in use, just click the “Local Port” column at the top to order the list by port number (handy if you’re looking for a specific one). You can do the same thing with remote ports, too.
If you want to really find specific ports, click the “Advanced Filters” icon at the top and enter your string in the format they suggest. It should look something like the below image.
Hit OK when you’re ready, and the list will filter down to your queries.
Command Prompt Method
The integrated – though not necessarily the simplest – way to check open ports is to use the trusty command prompt.
Click the Start button, type cmd , then right-click “Command Prompt” when it shows up in the search results. Click “Run as administrator.”
Once you’re in the elevated command prompt, enter the following command:
This will steadily bring up a list of ports that is probably quite long, along with the Windows processes that are using them. (You can press Ctrl + A , then Ctrl + C to copy all information to the clipboard.) On the average PC, there will be two main local IP addresses that contain ports on your PC.
The first, in our case, is “127.0.0.1.” This IP address is otherwise known as “localhost” or a “loopback address,” and any process listening to ports here is communicating internally on your local network without using any network interface. The actual port is the number you see after the colon. (See image below.)
The bulk of your processes will probably be listening to ports prefixed with “192.168.xxx.xxx,” which is your IP address. This means the processes you see listed here are listening for communications from remote Internet locations (such as websites). Again, the port number is the number after the colon.
TCPView
If you don’t mind installing a third-party app and want to have more control over what’s going on with all your ports, you can use a lightweight app called TCPView. This immediately brings up a list of processes and their associated ports.
What make this better than the command prompt is that you can actively see the ports opening, closing and sending packets. Just look for the green, red and yellow highlights. You can also reorder the list by clicking the column headings, making it easier to find the process you want or two separate processes vying for the same port.
If you do find a process or connection you want to close, just right-click that process. You can then select “End process,” which is exactly the same function as the one in Windows task manager. Or you can click “Close Connection” to leave the process open but stop it from listening on a given port.
If you’re having some trouble in Windows 10, then see whether a Windows update may be causing it. We also have a handy guide for managing the health of your hard drive in Windows 10.
Related:
Content Manager at Make Tech Easier. Enjoys Android, Windows, and tinkering with retro console emulation to breaking point.
How to Determine What Ports are Being Used in Windows 10
Last year we suffered the BitCoin miner virus which locked our computer and levied a ransom. And yet, the main reason for the spread of the virus was that the unused ports did not close. So, to guard against happening again, we have to determine what ports are being used in windows and then turn it off.
What is a Port?
When it comes to port, it’s necessary to talk about IP as well. Let me draw an analogy to describe the relationship between the Port and IP. Once upon a time, if you want to send a letter to your friend in a faraway place, you need to write down your address and his address on the envelope. The envelope is amount to the data package while both addresses are amount to IP. When the postman sends the letter to your friend’s house, and if your friend opens the door to get it, now the door is equal to the port. If your friend doesn’t open the door, that is to say, the port closed. After that, the letter will be sent back to you. In network technology, ports divide into two classes. One is a physical port, such as USB port. The second is the logical port, which generally refers to the port in the TCP/IP protocol. These port will cause some virus and harm your PC. As a result, there is necessary to check if the port is open.
Determine What Ports are Being Used in Windows 10
Step 1: Hit Windows + R to invoke Run dialog and type cmd to open Command Prompt.
Step 2: Type netstat -ano to list states of all ports.
Alternatively, type telnet
to check if port is open.
Step 3: Locate to the target port and view the corresponding PID in the final column. For example, the PID of port 2179 is 3800.
Step 4: Input tasklist|findstr “3800” and hit Enter on the keyboard to view which service takes up the port.
Step 5: To end up this service, run taskkill /f /t /im vmms.exe.
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How to find out which ports are used by a program?
I try to figure out which ports a specific program uses if they send data to the internet. Is there a tool which is able to find this out? Or do I have to do package inspection by using wireshark?
Background: I try to create a priority rule on my fritz!box 7490 router, so that some computer games are seen as real-time applications and there are as less lags as possible e.g. if someone in the network decides to watch videos on youtube while I am playing online.
3 Answers 3
Determine PID of your program
Check ports in third column of output from
- there is a space before PID to rule out inappropriate matches potentially coming from other columns (a little trick)
- /n keeps addresses in numeric form (without resolving) what causes the command to finish without delays (it should suffice for what you need)
If you are using windows you can use the free utility «Process Explorer» for this — among many other things. You have to run it in Administrator mode though.
If you are wanting to optimize something like a game or netflix streaming, then you don’t need to worry about the port on your computer — that is the client, and is (somewhat) randomly chosen from the higher range of ports. What you want is to find out what port(s) the service you are connecting to is provided on, and optimize connections to those ports from your machine (possibly by MAC address? or local lan ip)
Command line for looking at specific port
Is there a way to examine the status of a specific port from the Windows command line? I know I can use netstat to examine all ports but netstat is slow and looking at a specific port probably isn’t.
14 Answers 14
Here is the easy solution of port finding.
You can use the netstat combined with the -np flags and a pipe to the find or findstr commands.
Basic Usage is as such:
So for example to check port 80 on TCP, you can do this: netstat -np TCP | find «80» Which ends up giving the following kind of output:
As you can see, this only shows the connections on port 80 for the TCP protocol.
here o represents process ID. now you can do whatever with the process ID. To terminate the process, for e.g., use:
when I have problem with WAMP apache , I use this code for find which program is using port 80.
3068 is PID, so I can find it from task manager and stop that process.
As noted elsewhere: use netstat, with appropriate switches, and then filter the results with find[str]
To find a foreign port you could use:
To find a local port you might use:
Where N is the port number you are interested in.
-n ensures all ports will be numerical, i.e. not returned as translated to service names.
-a will ensure you search all connections (TCP, UDP, listening. )
In the find string you must include the colon, as the port qualifier, otherwise the number may match either local or foreign addresses.
You can further narrow narrow the search using other netstat switches as necessary.
Further reading (^0^)
it will give you number of sockets active on a specific IP and port(Server port number)
For Windows 8 User : Open Command Prompt, type netstat -an | find «your port number» , enter .
If reply comes like LISTENING then the port is in use, else it is free .
To find a foreign port (IPv4 or IPv6) you can use:
To find a local port (IPv4 or IPv6) you can use:
Where N is the port number you are interested in. The «/r» switch tells it to process it as regexp. The «/c» switch allows findstr to include spaces within search strings instead of treating a space as a search string delimiter. This added space prevents longer ports being mistreated — for example, «:80» vs «:8080» and other port munging issues.
To list remote connections to the local RDP server, for example:
Or to see who is touching your DNS:
If you want to exclude local-only ports you can use a series of exceptions with «/v» and escape characters with a backslash:
What is My Port Number?
Since certain games and programs use different ports to function, knowing your port numbers can be useful when it comes to configuring firewalls or give certain apps access. Learn the steps to find your port number on any OS.
Jump to…
How to Find Your Port Number
Here’s how to find your port number on Windows 8, Windows 10, or Mac device:
How to find ports being used in Windows
- Open Command Prompt by typing cmd in the search box.
- Enter ipconfig at the prompt This provides you with some outputs about your IP address. Note that if you are behind a router, you may not see your public IP. You may instead see a router IP, such as 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.2.31. If you want your public IP, you can go to What is my IP.
- Now, type netstat -a for a list of connections and port numbers that are currently being used. Note that the output of this will take a good ten minutes or so.
How to find the port number on macOS
- Open System Preferences by clicking on the Apple icon.
- Go to Network .
- Choose your network and then click Advanced .
- Select the Port Scan tab.
- Enter the IP address you want to scan. If you need to know your IP address, go to What is my IP.
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What is a Port Number?
To put it simply, a port number is the means through which a specific message is identified when it’s forwarded to a server. As there are 65,535 ports for each IP address, a specific designation would refer to one or several of those thousands of ports. Depending upon the service type, the message will either be associated with a TCP or a UDP port.
TCP vs. UDP
TCP stands for Transmission Control Protocol and sends the data after establishing a connection. which makes it more reliable than UDP for data transfers. On the other hand, UDP stands for User Datagram Protocol and sends data packets connection-less which makes it lightweight and significantly faster than TCP. You don’t really need to be particularly concerned with the details of TCP versus UDP here; port forwarding might apply to TCP or UDP, though..
What is the Difference between an IP Address and a Port Number?
A computer network is made up of a collection of devices – such as routers, printers, laptops, and cameras – that are connected together for sharing data and resources.
Each device within the network has a unique numerical label allocated to it, known as the Internet Protocol (IP) address. This helps with two main functions:
- Network or host identification
- Location addressing
A port number works in tandem with the IP address to direct specific traffic to a specific destination on a network. This can be done to optimize performance or to grant access altogether, as in the case of a web server. If the webserver port wasn’t open, you wouldn’t be able to run one, and people wouldn’t be able to connect to you.
The following are answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about port numbers.
Why Do I Need to Know my Port Number?
You need to use different ports for specific applications and that’s why you should know about port numbers. With the help of port numbers, you can:
- Configure security firewalls on any device, be it Windows or Mac
- Filter out IP addresses that range from mail service (SMTP), file transfer (FTP), web service (HTTP)
- Learn which incoming port is receiving or sending encrypted data and which one aren’t
- Enhance your online security without compromising private data
What is an IP Address?
An IP address is simply an address on the internet. Just like homes have addresses, so do computers connected to the internet.
There are two types of IP addresses: public and private. The private IP is the address allocated to your device by your router. The public IP address is provided by your ISP and it is the address that allows you to explore the internet. You can easily check your IP address via an IP lookup tool. Visit the IP lookup tool, and it will show your public IP address as well as IP location, ISP and even operating system.
How do I find the port number of a specific IP address?
All you have to do is type “netstat -a” on Command Prompt and hit the Enter button. This will populate a list of your active TCP connections. The port numbers will be shown after the IP address and the two are separated by a colon. For instance, if your IP address is something like 192.168.45.2 and you’re being displayed an entry for 192.168.45.2:57961, it means the port number 57961 is open and possibly in use.
What does a port scanner do?
Basically, a port scanner probes a host or server for open ports. These applications are commonly used by administrators to verify network security policies (but usually to see that ports are CLOSED, not open). In fact, even hackers use port scanners to identify open ports on a host so they can exploit any vulnerabilities attributed to those open ports.
Is my port open?
There are many port checking tools available on the internet that allow you to check your public (external) IP address and detect if there are any open ports associated with your IP address. This can help you in checking if port forwarding has been set up correctly on your router, or if a firewall is getting in the way of your server applications.
