Overview
This article explains how to view email headers within your mail client.
What are email headers?
Every email sent or received has a set of headers that are applied to that message. These headers consist of important details such as who sent the message, at what time, and to whom it was sent. The headers for a sent, bounced, and received message are different:
- Sent headers — These can be ignored as they do not include relevant information to diagnose a mail issue.
- Bounced headers — These are from an email sent from a DreamHost-hosted address and then rejected by the recipient server. These can be ignored as they only show you the details of the message rejection email you received.
- Received headers — This is the only header you need to diagnose a mail issue as it shows the complete journey the message took, starting from the sender's details to the final recipient.
Using email headers to troubleshoot mail issues
Email headers are especially helpful when submitting requests to DreamHost support regarding mail issues with sending and receiving. You can copy and paste the headers of a message into a support ticket, which will help determine what happened during the message's transport.
Viewing headers in your mail program
The process of viewing email headers differs between clients. For detailed instructions, see the following links for the most common mail clients.
| Mail program | More information |
|---|---|
| DreamHost Webmail | |
| Thunderbird | |
| Microsoft Outlook | Double-click the email to open in its own window. On the top left, click the File menu option. On the next page, click the Properties button to view headers. See Microsoft's support article for more information. |
| Mac Mail |
Show detailed headers in Mail on Mac — Apple Support |
| Additional mail resources |
Display and send the full headers of an email message — Various mail clients Trace an email with its full header — Google Support |