View Headers in Outlook Express

In order to solve many issues with email, the tech support team will need the message headers that come with the email. These headers contain the tracking information used by the mail servers in order to deliver the message.

Normally, these headers are not visible to you, but the are available.

In MS Outlook Express you can get to these headers in a few keystrokes. You can then copy them and send them to support for further investigation.

Email headers often contain a lot of mis-information. Spammers do this to try to get around spam filters. Viruses will also do this to hide where the message really comes from. If there are several messages of the same type showing up in your inbox you can send samples of a few with their headers.

Steps to View Headers

1. Right click on the message to bring up the context sensitive menu. (This is a good thing to try in most applications as it will give you a menu of common things you might want to try.)

   

2. Click on Properties down at the bottom of the menu. This will pull a panel with detailed information about the message.

   

3. Click on the Details tab then click inside the Internet Headers box and select all the headers. You can select the headers by clicking and dragging your mouse.

   

   Even better, click on the Message Source button. The will give you the entire message including the headers, which is what tech support will need. You can select the entire message by clicking and dragging your mouse or by typing Ctrl-A which will select all of the text at once.

   

4. Copy the text to your clipboard by typing Ctrl-C.
5. Compose a new message and paste (Ctrl-V) the headers and message and send to support.

With this information, support may be able to block the offender.