How to view Internet Headers in Outlook

Viewing Internet headers in Outlook is not the easiest thing to do….

Microsoft Outlook doesn’t have a View, Source option like you’ll find in Outlook Express. It has View, Options which shows you the Internet header in a small text box, but it only includes the Internet header, not the full message source.

You need to go to View | Options then scroll through the header to read it in a small text box. Alternately, you can select all, copy and paste into notepad.

Outlook 2010:

In Outlook 2010, you need to open the message then can either go to File, Properties to view the header, or click the expand button on the Tags chunk of the Message ribbon (as seen in this screenshot).

If you need to view the headers often, you can customize the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) and add the Properties command to the QAT.

Tip 832: View the Properties dialog

To view Internet headers (Includes a video tutorial customizing the QAT)

Among the third-party utilities which provide better options for viewing the header is Pocketknife Peek. I highly recommend this utility if you need to view headers very often.

Note that headers are only available on messages received from Internet transports, not Exchange servers.

Outlook 2003

Using Outlook 2003 you can view the header and source together in the options dialog, if you edit a registry key. This works on mail downloaded *from Internet mail transports only*, not Exchange server mailboxes. However, if you access the mailbox using an Internet transport, you’ll see the full source.

Do not attempt this unless you are comfortable editing the registry!

Open the registry editor and navigate to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice11.0OutlookOptionsMail
right click on the right pane and choose new DWORD:
Parameter: SaveAllMIMENotJustHeaders
Value: 1

Use CDO to get header pragmatically

An easier method is to access the header information using CDO and display it in  a message box, shown below. If you want to try this yourself, code samples are  available at www.cdolive.com. The code  works either as an Outlook VBA macro or can be used in Vb6 to create a COM  add-in.

If  you would like to try a very basic COM add-in, download this file. Install it from Tools |  Options | Advanced | COM Add-ins. click the Add button and browse to the  location of the file and select.

You need CDO installed – the add-in currently does not check for the presence of CDO. If the add-in does not work, rerun Office setup and install Collaboration Data Objects. The Email security “HELL” patch uninstalls CDO. At this early stage, you can only view the header, not select and copy it, for use in reporting spam. Also, the message box has a limit of 1024 characters, so some headers may be cut short. I’ll correct these issues as time permits. Also, if you uncheck it in the add-ins dialog, the button should disappear from your message form. If the button remains, let me know.

Among the third party utilities which provide better options for viewing the header is Pocketknife Peek.

Related posts:

Tags: headers, junk mail, properties, ribbon

This article is filed under Beginner, Email.
Last reviewed on Oct 31, 2011