Find an email header


OVERVIEW

Target audience: McGill students, staff, faculty and alumni

Every email message consists of two parts, the body and the header. The header can be thought of as the envelope of the message, and includes the address of the sender, the recipient, the subject and other information. The body contains the actual text and any attachments. Common email programs usually display part of the header; however in some cases you need the rest of the header information.

If you are reporting a suspicious email to the IT Service Desk, it is preferable to forward the suspicious email as an attachment. This keeps the header information intact and allows the Service Desk consultant to determine who it's coming from and whether or not it is a threat.

Your IT Service Desk consultant or other service provider may ask you to forward an email header in order to troubleshoot an issue with your email, or to determine if an email is spam or part of a phishing scam. Select your email client from the list below for instructions on how to find and forward an email header.

In this article:

Find an email header in...

Find an email header in Outlook for Windows

  1. Double-click on the email message to open it in a separate window.
  2. Click File > Info > Properties

    info properties

  3. Copy the entire contents of the Internet headers box, as shown below.

    Internet headers

  4. Open a new email, paste in the header text you just copied, and send the email to the IT Service Desk (or service provider).

Find an email header in Outlook on the web (OWA for Office 365)

  1. From the message list, without opening the message, right-click on it and select Message Details.

    OWA_message_details

  2. The header information is displayed.

    OWA_header_info

  3. Select and copy all of the text in the Message Details box.
    1. Right click > choose Select All.
    2. Right click again > choose Copy.
    3. Click Close.
  4. Create a new email, paste in the header text you just copied, and send it to the IT Service Desk (or service provider).

Find an email header in Outlook for Mac

  1. Control-click (Right-click) on the message and select View Source.
  2. Copy the source text and paste it into a new mail message; then send to the IT Service Desk.

Find an email header in Mac Mail

  1. Double click on the email message to open it in a separate window.
  2. Choose View > Message > All Headers
  3. Use the mouse to select the top of the message source, up until the beginning of your email message.
  4. Choose Edit > Copy.
  5. Create a new email, paste in the header text you just copied, and send it to the IT Service Desk (or service provider). 

ADDITIONAL REFERENCES:

Report suspicious emails to the IT Service Desk