Email

View Email Headers

Every email you send or receive carries a hidden log of routing data known as an email header. While normally invisible in your standard inbox view, this metadata contains a detailed, timestamped record of the message’s exact journey across the internet.

Knowing how to find and read email headers is an essential troubleshooting tool for site or store owners and administrators. By analyzing this hidden data, you can:

  • Verify Authenticity: Check authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to ensure the sender is legitimate.
  • Diagnose Delivery Issues: Pinpoint exactly where an email was delayed or why it failed to deliver.
  • Identify Spam and Phishing: Reveal the true origin IP address and sender of a suspicious email, bypassing spoofed “From” addresses.

Prerequisites

  • Access to an active email inbox via a standard email client (e.g., Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail, or Thunderbird).

Step-by-Step Instructions

Locate your email client to learn how to retrieve email headers for that client. For the most up-to-date instructions, please refer to your email client’s official documentation.

Apple Mail

  1. In the mailbox, highlight the message to view the headers.
  2. From the View menu, click Message then Raw Source.

Gmail

  1. Locate and open the email message headers you to view.
  2. On the right, click the drop-down list  and click Show original.
  3. You will see the email headers in plain-text.

Mozilla Thunderbird

  1. Open the relevant email message and, on your keyboard, press Ctrl + U.
  2. Right-click inside the new window containing the message headers and click Select All.

Outlook 2010+

  1. Locate the email message containing the headers to be retrieved and open it.
  2. Click File >Properties.

Horde

  1. Log in to Horde, click the relevant email message, then click Show All Headers.

RoundCube

  1. Log in to RoundCube and click the relevant email message.
  2. Click the arrow to view the email headers.

SquirrelMail

  1. Log in to SquirrelMail and click the email containing the desired headers.
  2. In the Options: list, click View Full Header.

Windows Live Mail

  1. Locate the email to view the headers.
  2. Right-click the email and click Properties.
  3. In the new panel, click the Details tab.