How Do I Determine the Source of an Email?

To determine the source of an email, you will need to examine the email headers. Email headers look something like this:

Return-Path: <sender@domain.tld.br>
Delivered-To: backup@example.com
Received: (fqmail 25542 invoked from network);
  19 Dec 2002 23:45:37 -0000
Received: from mx02.futurequest.net (69.5.6.172)
  by pt01.futurequest.net (63.151.147.170) with FQDP;
  19 Dec 2002 23:45:37 -000
Received: from unknown (HELO Spammer_domain.tld)
  (200.158.162.216)
  by mx02.futurequest.net (69.5.6.172) with SMTP;
  19 Dec 2002 23:48:40 -0000
To: opt-in_electeds@example.com
Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 20:50:39 -0300
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2720.3000
Message-Id: <y30t8.0ydupk31264m3t7p3u1@Spammer_domain.tld>
Content-Type: text/html;
	 charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
From: sender@domain.tld.br
Reply-To: bestloans@domain.tld.br
Subject: one of the us's largest mortgage lenders!!!

Learning how to read and interpret the mail headers is the key to determining the source of the email. If you do not know how to access the email headers in your mail program, this FAQ from the SpamCop.net web site explains how to access the email headers in many email clients. The tutorials below will help you learn how to interpret the email headers.

Tutorials and Resources on Interpreting Email Headers:
Tracing Spam - Who do I complain to? from the UXN spam combat site
Interpreting Email Headers
StopSpam.org: Reading Email Headers
EmailAbuse.org: Identify the Sender

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