Email Headers help document the relevant details related to an email’s route to your inbox. Understanding how an email header analysis works can help you enhance the security of your email communications, improve email deliverability, and generate more revenues with the help of email campaigns that reach your intended audience.
What Exactly Is An Email Header?
An Email Header is the metadata associated with all your emails and includes valuable details such as sender and recipient information, subject, timestamp, route, validation status, deliverability problems, and other crucial pieces of data.
Email headers are used by your email service provider to verify the authenticity, legitimacy, and safety of your emails and ensure smooth delivery. While the information is generated automatically, the mail server can add an unlimited number of additional information to it.
The raw file of this crucial “backstage” information is quite difficult to read and understand, especially for those who are not equipped with the relevant knowledge and skills. However, there are Email Header Analyzer tools that ‘humanize’ your email headers and make them easier to understand by an average user.
Viewing Email Headers Varies On Your Mailbox Provider
While the Email Header metadata is the same across all emailing mailbox providers and platforms, there are subtle differences in how to view them which vary from one mailbox provider to another. First, you need to select the email by double-clicking on the ‘target’ email. Then, follow the below steps:
If your mailbox provider is Gmail
- Click on the three-dot icon. It should be located in the top-right corner of the email that you’ve already opened
- Choose the “Show Original” option in the drop-down menu. This will show raw data in a new window.
In case you’re using Yahoo
- Click on the three-dot icon in the panel
- Choose the “View Raw Message” option
If you use Apple Mail
- Locate and select the “View” feature on the panel in the top-left of the email
- Choose “Message,” then select “All Headers”
When using Microsoft Outlook and Hotmail
- Next to the reply button, in the top right, is a three-dot icon. Select it.
- Scroll down, find the “View,” and choose the “View Message Source” option from the menu.
Why are Email Headers Important?
The reasons why an email header is important vary based on your role in the email communications. If you are the sender, email deliverability and reputation matter most to you, and email headers can help with that. If you are the admin, what matters to you are the fields to use in server configuration rules.
If you are the recipient, Email Metadata can serve in the process of authenticating and verifying the legitimacy of the email. This can help prevent spam, phishing, spoofing, and numerous other problems associated with unauthorized use.
Enhanced Security
Protocols such as DMARC, DKIM, and SPF are embedded within the email headers, which allows both senders and recipients to verify the legitimacy of messages.
This can help senders stop imposters from impersonating their domains and using them for malicious objectives. Recipients can examine these header elements to determine if an email is safe to open or not. This will reduce the success of email-based cyber attacks and better protect users.
Email Deliverability Boost
Email headers encompass crucial details that let the mailbox provider immediately and automatically understand whether or not an email is legitimate.
If you carefully examine and understand your email’s metadata, you will effectively identify the security gaps and understand which additional security mechanisms to use to address the existing gaps. This can help you significantly improve email deliverability and reach your intended audience with your promotional messages.
Saying Goodbye to Scammers
Did you know that the majority of scammers don’t even mask their IP addresses since they are sure that the user won’t analyze their email header? You can easily switch the roles and rules in the game by carefully examining your email headers. Using a DNS checker can help you easily determine whether or not an IP address has been blacklisted, which in turn will enable you to spot the hacker before they spot your sensitive personal details.
Email route identification
With an email header, you can easily and accurately trace the whole route of an email. Email headers often contain multiple IP addresses, each represented by four sets of numbers ranging from 0 to 255, separated by periods.
These addresses identify the sender and various servers involved in the email’s transmission. The IP addresses are listed chronologically, with the oldest at the bottom of the headers and newer ones appearing above. The sender’s IP address can be found in the first “received” entry, which will be enclosed in brackets.
This helps trace an email’s path and check its origin, which in turn will ensure maximum security and transparency in the sources of the emails.
What Is An Email Header Analyzer?
As mentioned previously, email headers can be very challenging to read and understand, especially if the user does not have the necessary technical skills. This is why email header analyzers exist. With tools like PowerDMARC’s email header analyzer, you can not only analyze email headers but do so much more.
The tool gives you access to comprehensive and speedy email header analysis, instant, real-time reporting, as well as detailed analysis of your email authentication protocols like DMARC, DKIM, MTA-STS, and BIMI.
You can use it to send a blank email to a specifically designated, auto-generated address to get a detailed email header breakdown of the header. The analysis will include information on DMARC, DKIM, SPF, MTA-STS, and BIMI compliances, which will ensure you are always up to date with the latest security standards and requirements.
PowerDMARC’s smart tool will also help ‘translate’ the headers according to RFC 822 standards, which will ensure the headers are easily read and understood by humans. There is no need for domain registrations, which ensures the process is easy and smooth, with no unnecessary complications or bureaucracy.
How Does PowerDMARC’s Email Header Analyzer Work?
Here is a concise description of how PowerDMARC’s email header analyzer works:
Header Extraction Stage
The initial step that PowerDMARC’s tool takes in the process of email header analysis is isolating the header section from the rest of the email.
This portion, which is often concealed from the recipient’s view, includes a set of fields that contain specific metadata. The analyzer focuses on extracting this crucial information-rich section to begin the detailed examination process.
Deciphering Stage
Then, PowerDMARC’s email header analyzer parses the content found in the header. This helps decipher any encoded data (e.g. base64 or MIME).
Field Analysis
The tool analyzes each field in the header separately. Some of the most commonly analyzed are the following:
- Sender’s name
- Email address
- Subject
- Date of sending and receiving the email
Extraction of the IP Address Stage
The PowerDMARC email header analyzer then proceeds to the extraction of IP addresses that are mentioned in the email header. While the IP addresses serve to determine the email source, they can often fall victim to spoofing or be hidden by hackers.
SPF, DKIM, and DMARC Analysis
The smart email header analyzer developed by PowerDMARC checks for SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records. This enables the system to check an email’s origin to ensure it has not been manipulated in the transit process.
Final Starge: Output and Analysis
Last but not least, the analyzer presents all the information it has gathered and analyzed so far in a human-readable format, so the users themselves can read and understand the relevant information and take action correctively.
How to Analyze Email Headers with PowerDMARC?
- First, sign up on the PowerDMARC portal. Signing up on the platform is completely free of charge. On the left-hand side menu bar, locate and click on “MailAuth Analyzer”.
- Secondly, when you are already on the MailAuth Analyzer page, locate an auto-generated email address, and click on the copy button to copy it to your clipboard.
- Thirdly, to analyze email authentication records for a specific domain, open your email account and create a new message. In the “To:” field, enter the auto-generated email address that’s provided to you. You can leave the body of this test email completely black. Then, click send. This process starts the analysis of your domain’s email authentication settings by sending a test message to the automated header examination tool.
- Lastly, go back to the MailAuth analyzer tool on the portal and click “refresh.” Now you’ll receive immediate results for your sending domain. These results include key details such as your email address, the source IP, DMARC compliance status for the sent email, the creation date, and additional relevant actions.
