Email Headers

In order for us to track down a spammer, we need the complete "header" details from the original message.

The header contains a

detailed record of who sent the email
from where
where it's been on its way to you
It also contains some specific anti-spam information and special IP address information.
If you forward a message to us, most of the important header information is lost.

It is VERY Necessary to obtain these details, in order for us to help you with a suspected spammer.

What does an email header look like?

Return-Path: <example_from@dc.edu>
X-SpamCatcher-Score: 1 [X]
Received: from [136.167.40.119] (HELO dc.edu)
by fe3.dc.edu (CommuniGate Pro SMTP 4.1.8)
with ESMTP-TLS id 61258719 for example_to@mail.dc.edu; Mon, 23 Aug 2004 11:40:10 -0400
Message-ID: <4129F3CA.2020509@dc.edu>
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2005 11:40:36 -0400
From: Taylor Evans <example_from@dc.edu>
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.0.1) Gecko/20020823 Netscape/7.0
X-Accept-Language: en-us, en
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: Jon Smith <example_to@mail.dc.edu>
Subject: Business Development Meeting
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Instructions for MS Outlook:

MS Outlook 2013-16
- Open the message in a new window (double clicking on the email will open in a new Window - IMPORTANT STEP)
- Click on "FILE", then click on the "Info", then click "Properties" button, a new window will appear, at the bottom will be the "Internet Headers"
Outlook for Mac 2011

Open Outlook for Mac 2011.
Ctrl+Click (or right-click with a two-button mouse) on the message from the message list.
Select View Source.
Full headers will appear in a new TextEdit document.

MS Outlook 2010:
- Open the message in a new window (double clicking on the email will open in a new Window - IMPORTANT STEP)
- Click on "FILE" and then click on the "Properties" button, a new window will appear, at the bottom will be the "Internet Headers"
MS Outlook 2007: Open the message in a new window (double clicking on the email will open in a new Window). Click on the VERY small down-arrow where is says Options in blue under the icons. It's hard to find but you'll find it.
MS Outlook 2000 - 2003: Open the spam mail into a new window. Then select View >> Options.
At the bottom of the window, you will find the Internet Headers. Highlight and copy all of the headers in to your clipboard.
Open a new email address and paste the headers into the new email message but don't send it yet.
Go to the original message without opening it and hit CTRL C to copy the message. Then go to the new email and select any spot in the body of the email and press CTRL V to paste the message as an attachment.
Send the new email to "support@ephost.com" or simply reply to the open ticket if you opened one already.

Mac Mail

Open Mac Mail.
Click on the message you'd like to view headers for.
Go to the View menu.
Select Message, then Long Headers.

The full headers will appear in the window below your inbox.