How to View Outlook 2010 Message Headers

Published May 6, 2012

When you want to know where an email came from, the quickest way is to check out the message headers. In Outlook 2010 they aren’t in an obvious spot, so I’ll show you where to look.

Emails headers help you see the server an email comes from. For legitimate cases, it’s a helpful security tool. However spammers have been known to spoof information seen in headers, so even if it looks like it came from a legitimate source, be on the watch. Here’s how to check them from Outlook.

Open a received or sent email in it’s own window. Most often this is done by double-clicking the email from the Inbox.

Click the File menu and select Info >> Properties.

At the bottom of the Properties window you’ll see the full internet headers. You may need to take advantage of the built-in scroll bar to see the entire header.