Email Header Analyzer
What is Email Header Analysis?
Email headers contain crucial metadata about an email's journey from sender to recipient. They include routing information, authentication results, and server details that are essential for troubleshooting delivery issues.
How This Tool Works
- Paste the full email headers into the text area above
- Click "Analyze Headers" to parse the data
- Review the parsed headers and analysis summary
- Look for authentication results (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) in the headers
Key Headers Explained
- Received: Shows each mail server that handled the message, in reverse chronological order
- From: The sender's email address
- To: The recipient's email address
- Date: When the email was sent
- Message-ID: Unique identifier for the email
- Authentication-Results: SPF, DKIM, and DMARC check results
- Return-Path: Where bounce messages should be sent
Use Cases
- Diagnosing email delivery problems
- Tracing the path of a suspicious email
- Verifying email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC)
- Identifying spam or phishing attempts
- Troubleshooting mail server configurations
Example: Sample Email Header
Received: from mail.example.com (mail.example.com [192.0.2.1])
by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id abc123
for <user@example.com>
(version=TLS1_2 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256);
Thu, 08 Feb 2024 12:00:00 -0700
From: sender@example.com
To: recipient@example.com
Date: Thu, 08 Feb 2024 12:00:00 -0700
Message-ID: <abc123@example.com>
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com;
spf=pass smtp.mailfrom=example.com;
dkim=pass header.i=@example.com;
dmarc=pass
Related Tools
- DKIM Validator - Validate DKIM signatures
- SPF Checker - Check SPF records
- DMARC Checker - Verify DMARC policies
- Email Blacklist Lookup - Check IP reputation
- SMTP Tester - Test mail server connectivity