Outlook: Obtain Email Headers

Overview

Email headers contain valuable information about the origin and path of an email. This information can be useful for troubleshooting email delivery issues and investigating suspicious messages. To obtain the headers of an email, choose your Outlook client and follow the instructions below. 

Instructions

Outlook (Windows Desktop Client):

1. Open Outlook.
2. Open the email you want to see the headers for.
3. Click File Properties.
4. The headers will show in the "Internet headers" box. Right-click inside the headers and choose Select All.
5. Right-click again and choose Copy.
6. Close the Message Options window.
7. You should now be looking at the original message window. You can copy and paste these message headers into the email or support ticket.

Outlook (Web Client):

1. Open Outlook Web App.
2. Open the email you want to see the headers for.
3. Click and then click View Message Details.
4. The headers will show in the "Message details" box. Click inside the headers and select all the text.
5. Right-click again and choose Copy.
6. Close the Message Options window.
7. You should now be looking at the original message window. You can copy and paste these message headers into the email or support ticket.

Outlook (macOS Desktop Client):

1. Open Outlook.
2. Right-click on the email you want to see the headers for.
3. Click View Source.
4. Your text editor (typically an application called TextEdit) will open, displaying all the headers for the message, followed by the message body.
5. Select all (cmd + a) and Copy (cmd + c) to copy the contents of the text file.
6. You can paste these contents into the email or support ticket.