Viewing Full Email Headers
The full headers of an email message display information about the sender and the route the message took before arriving in your inbox. This information is useful for diagnostic purposes, and is often requested by service providers, including our own Service Desk, when troubleshooting email problems. This may often be requested in lieu of requesting a complete copy of the message.
Click on your preferred email application below for instructions for viewing full message headers. The headers can then be copied and pasted into an email message.
Note: Most mobile devices do NOT have this functionality.
- Open (double-click) the message whose headers you want to view.
- From the File tab, select Properties.
- Message headers appear in the Internet headers section of the window that opens.
- Select the message whose headers you want to view.
- Right-click (or Control-click) on the message and choose View Source.
- This opens a window in your text editor of choice (TextEdit.app if you haven't chosen something else), with the raw source of the entire message. This will be quite large if the message is large. You can select only the headers (everything up to the first blank line), and copy them into a new message.
- Right-click (or Control-click) in the message list on the message whose headers you want to view.
- Select View > View message details.
- Select the message whose headers you want to view.
- Click the More menu (three vertical dots) in the top-right corner of the message panel and select Show original.
- This opens a window with the raw source of the entire message, which will be quite large if the message is large. You can select only the headers (everything up to the first blank line), and copy them into a new message.
- Select the message whose headers you want to view.
- From the View menu, select Message > Raw Source.
- This opens a window with the raw source of the entire message, which will be quite large if the message is large. You can select only the headers (everything up to the first blank line), and copy them into a new message.
Note: Using Message > Default Headers rather than Raw Source is not recommended because the former formats the headers in a way that makes them difficult to use. The latter presents the headers (and everything else in the message) exactly as-is.
- Select the message whose headers you want to view.
- From the View menu, select Message Source.
- This opens a window with the raw source of the entire message, which will be quite large if the message is large. You can select only the headers (everything up to the first blank line), and copy them into a new message.