DePaul Information Services

Displaying Full E-mail Headers

Overview

Electronic mail, or e-mail, has become a tool that we use everyday in communication. E-mail is used to communicate business strategies, personal best-wishes, meeting times, "To Do" lists, and much more. Unfortunately, e-mail is also used to send unsolicited commercial e-mail (aka. spam) and viruses that cause an interruption of e-mail use.

Often we receive reports of spam or viruses originating from the University based on the "From" portion of the e-mail. This is sent simply by forwarding the message to our contact e-mail address. However, this is often not enough information for us to act on; we require more information than meets the eye in many email clients.

The following is a brief list of e-mail clients and how to gather email headers using those clients. This list is not and complete list; feel free to contact us with suggestions for improvements.

Novell Groupwise

Open the e-mail message. In the message window, click: File-> Attachments->View.
Select the Mime.822 attachment; this is a copy of the e-mail with full headers.

Squirrel Mail/Student Webmail

Open the e-mail message.
Click on View Message details.
The pop-up window contains the entire e-mail message, with headers.

PINE

PINE may require a configuration change to display fully-headered emails. We cover both how to enable this and how to view the message below.

From the Main Menu of PINE, press (S)etup, then (C)onfig.
Scroll down to the option labeled enable-full-header-cmd. If the box is checked, the full-header option is already turned on. If no "X" exists in the box, press [ENTER].
Press (E)xit, then (Y)es to save.
Open up the message in PINE; to view full-headers, press H (case insensitive).

iMail for Mac OS X

Open the e-mail message.
Press: OPTION+APPLE+U together to view the raw message source. As an alternative, you may also use the following mouse clicks. View -> Message -> Raw Source.
The message window changes to a raw source format. Follow the steps above to change the window back to normal.

Mozilla Thunderbird

Select the message you wish to view.
Open the message in a new window by selecting File -> Open.
View full headers by clicking View -> Headers -> All.
The window is transformed into full-headers. Follow the procedure above to change back to normal headers.

Microsoft Outlook Express 4, 5, 6 / Microsoft Exchange

Outlook Express is an insecure email viewer! By following these steps, you may run the risk of opening malicious e-mails intended to infect your computer with a virus or other malware. We strongly urge you to upgrade to a better e-mail client; some of which can be found on our secure software page. If you understand the risk, follow the instructions below.

Open the e-mail message.
Click the following menus or tabs: File -> Properties -> Details -> Message Source
The window now includes all e-mail header details.

Disclaimer

Although we have attempted to ensure this document is as precise as possible, CSRT takes no responsibility for any side-effects these procedures may incur on your computer. Please see our full disclaimer for the more information on the responsibility offered to you, the user.

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