Top Six Email Header Analysis Tools – Tried & Tested by Experts

Overview: In the following write-up, we have listed the best email header analyzers that enable experts in in-depth header analysis. All these applications have been tested by forensic experts on the basis of their functionality and ease of usability.

Emails are important means of communication for sharing business, commercial, and personal emails. The best thing about email is that it provides in-depth specifications about different properties. In fact, an email has many complex and unexposed parts hidden in the email header.

However, there comes a time when an email and its attributes need to be analyzed or examined. In such a case, having the best email header analyzer can make the process a lot easier.

So, the aim of this informative guide is to cover various tools that analyze email headers. But, before moving ahead, let’s take a look at the following question.

Why are message headers given priority when it comes to examining emails? Let’s first understand the significance of email headers.

Email Headers Play Important Roles in Different Scenarios

Message headers or email headers are essential in email communication. They specify basic information such as who’s the sender/receiver of the mail, the Date & Time of the message received, Subject line of the message.

Along with this common information, the email header describes other email security protocols such as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.

Email headers are important because they are analyzed to detect the deliverability issue for an email. Sometimes commercial mail is marked as spam by email service providers. And, it could be due to problems in the message header.

On the other hand, most cybercrimes these days are happening through emails. And, the hackers particularly modify the message headers to execute malicious activities. In such an extreme case, forensic investigators get involved to examine the header. A message header analyzer helps them extract evidence and carry out a successful investigation.

So, it’s pretty much essential to have the best Email Header Analysis Tool to yield an accurate result. But, how will you know that it’s the best of all?

Well, there are certain parameters you need to check before confirming the email analyzing tool.

What to Look for While Choosing the Most Rated Email Header Analyzers?

Different message-analyzing tools work differently. Most of them were able to view the basic information such as From, To, Date & Time, Subject, and Cc that resides in an email header. And, some of them display email security protocols as well.

However, you should opt for the tool that previews basic details as well as complex details of an email. So, the best email header analyzer tool will be able to display the message and its header data, attachment details, properties, MIME, RTF, hash values, and other crucial details. All this information in an email plays a vital part in the case of a forensic investigation.

In short, the message header analyzer tool must be an all-rounder that can help the user or investigating officer fulfill their needs.

Without further ado, let’s discuss some of the best email header analyzers.

1. MailXaminer (Expert’s First Choice)

MailXaminer is one of the top email forensic software loaded with various distinct features. The tool does everything from analyzing email headers to email security protocols (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) to previewing hash values. It supports various email clients such as Outlook, Thunderbird, IncrediMail, Gmail, Office 365, and many more. Also, this professional tool can certainly examine different file formats i.e. PST, MBOX, EML, MSG, PDF, HTML, etc.

Some of the prominent features of the best Email Header Analysis Tool are as follows:

• The tool comes with a powerful search mechanism including various search options and logical operators.
• Advanced link analysis helps in detecting the relationship between multiple emails connected with each other.
• Also, the advanced OCR supports searching image content from attachment files.
• The Robust Forensic Keyword Search feature can find evidence from the bulk of electronic data.
• The sort & filter data facilitates sorting files in ascending or descending order w.r.t different attributes.
• It supports 80+ different email clients as well as 20+ file formats for analysis.
• The tool displays hash values which help in preserving the evidence after the analysis.

So, basically, it’s an all-rounder tool with many extraordinary features.

You can visit the official website for more details – https://www.mailxaminer.com/

2. MailPro+

MailPro+ is a versatile email header analysis tool that can preview, search, and export emails from different email clients. The tool allows you to view email messages, email attachments, 7+ preview modes, and many more.

The main features of the tool include;

• Searching & exporting emails from numerous email applications.
• Previewing different email attachments such as PDF, JPG, GIF, etc.
• Searching emails within source email files.
• Exporting email in different file formats such as PST, PDF, MSG, HTML, EML, TIFF, and CSV.
• Three ways to load files into the software.

For more details visit – https://www.systoolsgroup.com/mail-pro-plus.html

3. MailAuth Analyzer

MailAuth Analyzer is also one of the most-rated email header analyzers. It helps in troubleshooting email-related issues. The tool supports a search mechanism to identify the required email for analysis.

Advanced features of the tool are as follows:

• It can display the basic email header data such as From, To, Date & Time, Subject fields, etc.
• The tool can view SPF, DKIM, and DMARC protocols.
• It supports different email clients for analyzing its message headers.

4. Email Header Analyzer by MxToolbox

MxToolbox is an open-source analyzer for email headers that can preview only basic information about the email header.

• It can display the From, To, Subject, Date & Time, anti-spam results, hop delays, etc.
• This open-source platform supports analyzing headers of various email clients including Outlook, Zimbra, AOL, Gmail, etc.

Though it displays message header information, at the same time it requires expertise to understand the same. Also, with this open source, you can analyze email headers one at a time.

5. Google Admin Toolbox Messageheader

Message Header is a free and one of the best email header analysis tools by Google that analyzes SMTP message headers. The tool helps in identifying misconfigured servers and mail-routing problems.

However, it fails to display other relevant data such as different view modes (which include attachment details, properties, MIME, HTML, and Hex view), hash values, etc. which is crucial for forensic investigation purposes.

• This toolbox displays basic fields of email such as From, To, Subject, Message ID, Date & Time, SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.

A sample screenshot of the interface is as follows:

6. Email Header Analyzer by DNS Checker

DNS checker is also an open-source analyzer that provides the facility to examine email headers. It displays email source IP info. Then again, it shows the header information of one email at a time. Furthermore, it isn’t easy to understand the end result.

Final Insight

Whether you want to troubleshoot the delay in email delivery or want to extract digital evidence from a particular email, analyzing the header would do the job. Hence, to make it easier for users/officers, this guide discussed some of the best email header analyzers for reference.