How to Find Email Headers

How to Find Email Headers

This article will help you find how to pull up email headers in common email programs. 

MAC OS X: How to view email headers in mail

Message Header: The part of an email that precedes the body or text of the message. A message’s full header includes detailed information about the mail servers and protocols used to route the message. Most email apps, including Mail, show an abbreviated version—typically, sender, recipients, date, and subject.  Email headers can be extremely helpful in determining how a message arrived, why it did not arrive in the case of a returned message or why it was or was not rated as spam.  Email headers contain a step by step process of how the message was sent, what servers it passed through and additional details that can be very helpful when escalations are needed. 
 
  1. Go to the Mail app  on your Mac.
  2. Select the email so it is highlighted
  3. Click View > Message > All Headers.
  4. The headers will be displayed in the email preview window

(I deleted the “view fewer headers” as I think it is better to just approach it from the view all headers incase they are needed for an escalation.)
(Let me know if you need screen shots of the above.)

Outlook: Viewing and Forwarding email headers

  1. Select the email from you Inbox and double click it to open the message in its own window.
  2. Click on File
  3. Click on Properties
  4. The Internet Headers will be displayed in a sub-window in the dialogue box that opens.  To view all of the headers, you will need to click and hold the right mouse button before the first letter in the headers, drag down to select all the text and then hit Ctrl-C to copy.  
  5. Paste the headers into Notepad or another text application using Ctrl-V to view the full set of headers. 


How to view and forward email headers in EarthLink Web Mail

  1. Select the message in webmail
  2. Click the More Actions dropdown at the top of the window and select the View Headers option
  3. The headers will be shown in the message preview window







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