Analyze Gmail Message Header – A Free & Ultimate Guide to Follow
Summary: If you are looking for an easy and free solution to view and analyze Gmail message header, then you have reached the right blog, In this write-up, we are going to provide you the top and free solutions to do the same.
But before proceeding any further let’s talk about emails in brief.
Brief Intro About Email Messages
Email is a very common and instantaneous way of communication, making it more suitable and popular for business use nowadays. There are various email clients available, however, Gmail is the free and most used email client. It has 1 billion active monthly users worldwide, and it has been used for different purposes, including communicating with friends, contacting professors and supervisors, requesting information, and applying for jobs, internships, and scholarships, and mostly in business environments for daily communications.
One of the most important parameters of Gmail messages is the message header, each Gmail message is associated with a unique and hidden message header, that contains the most crucial and important data of email tracking for the respective emails. This information is the most vital for email forensics investigation teams and their users also. Now, let’s discuss the ways to view and analyze Gmail message header.
How to View the Gmail Message Header in Gmail?
In this manual way, we can easily view the message header, follow these guided steps to do the same.
Step 1: Open Gmail and Log in to your Gmail account.
Step 2: Open the desired email message, for which you want to view the header.
Step 3: Click on the arrow button, given next to the reply button in the email.
Step 4: A small drop-down menu will open, click on the show original button to view and analyze Gmail message header.
View & Analyze Gmail Message Header Elements
Understanding the importance of the message header, hence, let’s analyze each component in a detailed manner.
Delivered-To: This element simply defines the email address of the recipient of the associated email message.
Received By: This element of the message header describes the information regarding the prior/last SMTP server visited by the email message.
Received From: This field provides us the information about the first SMTP server at which the email message browsed.
DKIM Signature: This field represents the digital signature embedded in the email message. This is another kind of authentication key managed by a mail server to share data in a secure form.
MIME-Version: This element of the message header denotes the MIME formatted message-id. Hence, it can support various data types including text files, audio files, video files, and applications, etc,
Reply- To: The reply-to email header field simply lists the email address at which the reply to the message is received.
Message-Id: Every Gmail message has its unique message ID, that each email message is assigned a unique message ID, which differentiates it from other email messages. Two Gmail messages can not have the same message-id as it works as a primary unique value for each email.
Date: This field in the header denotes the date and time at which the email message was received at the receiver’s end.
Subject: The subject field in the email message tends to display the subject or the purpose of the email.
From: This field denotes the email address of the sender.
To: This field represents the receiver’s email address.
CC: This field contains the list of all email addresses of the receivers, who are intended to receive the message as a copy.
Free Solution to View Gmail Message Header From Google Takeout MBOX File
If a user already has the MBOX file of an email and in this condition, the user has no other option than to use a tool to view and analyze Gmail message header from the MBOX file. In this scenario, it is suggested to use a free professional tool for this operation and we will suggest you MBOX Email Forensics Tool. This is a free tool, that is capable to extract message headers from the MBOX file.
Benefits of Using the Pro Version of this Utility
There are scenarios where the user needs to download the emails in PDF format for print purposes. In that situations, there is no manual way to do the same. Hence, by using the pro version of this utility, you can download and keep your emails in PDF format, along with this you can have multiple views of email message headers.
Concluding Words
Since the manual method is available to view and analyze Gmail message header, however, in situations when users are having MBOX files of emails to view the message header, then in that condition, by using the above-mentioned tool they can easily extract message header from MBOX in Gmail for free.
