Email: Reporting and Message Headers

This article discusses the importance of message headers in reporting suspicious emails.

Overview

An email header is the part of the message that allows delivery to recipients. It contains message information, such as the subject, sender (origin), destination, and path. For this reason, it is helpful to provide headers when troubleshooting email problems.

Detail

When reporting suspicious email, Pitt Information Technology recommends forwarding entire email messages as attachments to phish@pitt.edu. Doing so enables more complete, accurate assessment of the email content and source. 

Other Ways to Get Header Information

Alternatively, when asked to provide information about email headers, choose one of the following options when using Microsoft Outlook as your email client:

• Outlook for Windows:
  1. Double-click an email message to open it.
  2. Select File, then Properties. 
  3. Copy the header information from the Internet Headers box.

• Outlook for Mac: 
  1. Right-click the message.
  2. Select View Source to show the header information appears.
  3. Copy the header information.

• Outlook on the web:  
  1. Left-click the message.
  2. On the upper right-hand side of the displayed message, in the drop-down menu next to the "Reply" or "Reply All" button, select View message details.
  3. From the pop-up window, copy the header information.

For other email clients, please refer to their product support documentation.

Related Information

More ways to get information about email message reporting

• Viewing email headers
• Reporting email spam and phishing scams