How to find your email headers

In this article, you will discover how to find the headers of your emails, which can be particularly useful during an investigation when troubleshooting deliverability issues.

1. What is an email header?

An email consists of two parts:

• The header
• The body of the message (the content of the email)

Headers contain essential technical information about the email, such as:

• The sender and the recipient
• The date and time of sending
• The servers used for sending
• The sending IP address
• Various routing elements of the message

2. What is this information used for?

This data is mainly used for technical analysis purposes.

It is especially helpful for our support team to:

• Identify the origin of a deliverability problem
• Understand why an email was not correctly delivered
• Analyze the path taken by a message

In case of any technical issues, headers provide a precise and quick diagnosis.

The header we need is located directly in the email received by the recipient.

3. How to retrieve an email header

a. Email received on a Gmail address

If the email was received at a Gmail address, here is the procedure to follow:

Open the relevant email. Click the options menu (the three dots) located to the right of the reply icon (1), then Select Show original (2).

You will then access all the technical information of the email, including its full header.

A new window will then open. Simply click Copy to clipboard to retrieve all the information from the header.

Then paste the content into a note (or any other note-taking tool) so you can keep it and transmit it easily if necessary.

b. Email received on a Microsoft (Outlook) address

If the email was received on a Microsoft (Outlook) address, here is the procedure to follow:

Open the email concerned. In the menu bar located on the right, click the icon with the three horizontal dots (1), then click View (2).

Select View message source (3); a popup window containing the full email header will open.

You simply need to select the content, copy it, and then paste it into a note in order to keep it or transmit it easily.

c. Email received on a Yahoo address

If the email was received on a Yahoo address, here is the procedure to follow:

Open the email concerned. In the menu located above the message, next to the spam reporting icon, click the icon with the three horizontal dots (1), then select View raw message (2).

A new window will then open, containing the full email header. Copy all the displayed content, then paste it into a note in order to keep it or transmit it easily.

4. Where to find headers on other email services

If you use another email service, you can consult the specific instructions to extract email headers directly on the support of the concerned provider.