How to track the original location of an email via its IP address

Posted on October 9, 2007 at 7:14 am

Here’s a quick how-to guide on how you can track email to it’s originating location by figuring out the email’s IP address and looking it up. I have found this to be quite useful on many occasions for verification purposes since I receive lots of emails daily due to my blog. Tracking the IP address of an email sender does require looking at some technical details, so be ready to dig your heels in!

There are basically two steps involved in the process of tracking an email: find the IP address in the email header section and then look up the location of the IP address.

Finding the IP address of an email sender in GMail, Yahoo Mail, and Outlook

Let’s go ahead and take a look at how you would do this for Google, Yahoo and Outlook since those are the most popular email clients.

Google’s Gmail

1. Log into your account and open the email in question.

2. Click on the down arrow that’s to the right of the Reply link. Choose Show Original from the list.

Now here’s the technical part that I was telling you about earlier! You need to look for the lines of text that start with “Received: from“. It might be easier to simply press Cntrl + F and perform a search for that phase. You’ll notice that there are several Received From’s in the message header. This is because the message header contains the IP addresses of all of servers involved in routing that email to you.

To find the first computer that originally sent the email, you’ll have to find the Received From that’s farthest DOWN. As you can see from the above image, the first one is from a computer called “aseem” with the IP address 72.204.154.191. Then it was routed to my ISP’s server at eastrmmtao104.cox.net and so on and so forth till it got to your email server.

The computer aseem is my personal home computer and that’s my public IP address for my house! I’ll go through Yahoo and Outlook before talking about tracking the location of that IP address.

Yahoo Mail Beta

1. Log into your account and open the email (if you’re using Yahoo Mail Beta with the new preview interface, make sure you double-click on the email so that it opens in a new tab)

2. At the top right, you’ll see there is a drop-down option where Standard Header is selected by default.

3. Click on it and choose Full Header.

Again, you’ll see the same information as before, just in a different window:

Microsoft Outlook

1. Open the email in Outlook by double-clicking on it

2. Go to View at the top menu (the menu options for the email, not the main Outlook window) and choose Options.

You’ll get a dialog box where you can set the message options and at the bottom you’ll see the Internet Headers box. For some silly reason, the box is very small and you have to scroll a lot, so it’s best to simply copy and paste the text into Notepad to view it more easily.

Tracking the location of an IP address

Now that we have our originating IP address of 72.204.154.191, let’s find out where that is! You can do this by perform a location lookup on the IP address. My favorites are IP2Location and GeoBytes IP Locator.

GeoBytes gave me a big map of New Orleans, LA along with a bunch of other information about the location itself.

IP2Location also gave me the same information pretty much, including the ISP (Cox Communications). Of course, this is correct since I live in New Orleans!

If you want more information, you can do a WHOIS database search also. My favorite one is the ARIN WHOIS Database Search. This will give you information on who hosts that IP address and their registration information. You can always contact them to try and find more information on that particular IP address.

Have fun tracking down those emails! Questions, comments, or suggestions? Post a comment!

[tags]track email, track an email, track email ip, find email ip address, locate email, find location, locate ip address[/tags]

» Filed Under Computer Tips

Comments

151 Responses to “How to track the original location of an email via its IP address”

ReviewSaurus said on : October 14th, 2007 at 8:12 pm

Congrats aseem for getting dugged! And hey that’s a nice and informative guide

Apostrophe Police said on : October 14th, 2007 at 8:51 pm

“It’s” is always a contraction; the possessive form of “it” has no apostrophe.

beno said on : October 14th, 2007 at 9:29 pm

but thats only if the sender used a mail client on his own computer. if the sender uses gmail.com web interface to send the mail, u’ll just see googles server in the “recieved: from” section. not useful!

akishore said on : October 14th, 2007 at 9:33 pm

Hi Beno,

I agree it’s not useful if the email is sent from Gmail via a web browser. However, there are tons of people who send emails from their office computers (Outlook, etc) and in those cases, tracking the location would be useful!

Aseem

beno said on : October 14th, 2007 at 9:43 pm

agreed, for such scenarios! i thought more people used the web interface than local clients. anyways, have a great day!

Lexx said on : October 15th, 2007 at 1:51 am

The IP shown isn’t necessarily the originating IP. I could quite easily use someones else IP range and send emails.

Markus Diersbock said on : October 15th, 2007 at 4:19 am

This isn’t always the case with webmail.

If you are in Europe getting your mail, it will still
look like you are in the US.

Their’s some good news with mail like HotMail, you
can check one of the X-headers like:

X-Originating-IP: [38.99.194.90]

Markus Diersbock said on : October 15th, 2007 at 4:21 am

new_msg = replace(old_msg, “their’s”,”there’s”)

TRaef06 said on : October 15th, 2007 at 5:32 am

Lexx – “In fact, the only part of the email header that can’t be faked is the Received: line, which references your mail server. Spammers often add spoofed Received: headers to try to hide the true origin of the unwanted email, but modern mail transfer programs record the sender’s correct IP address. So even if the sender uses a fictitious or false name when contacting the receiving server, you can determine the origin of the spoofed message.”
http://searchsecurity.techtarg.....58,00.html

The three way handshake that is part of every TCP communication prevents IP spoofing.

sadasd said on : October 15th, 2007 at 7:48 am

Not useful: the LAST Received: line may be private IP, you have to look up the last non-private IP.

NotSoFast said on : October 15th, 2007 at 8:21 am

Be careful when relying on this information. Spoofing IP’s in emails is trivial.

TRaef06 said on : October 15th, 2007 at 8:45 am

You can’t spoof the originating IP address. Its part of the three way handshake. All the others are easily spoofed.

That’s how SPAM filters check reverse DNS.

His article does state to use the bottom IP address, which is the only one you can rely on.

Nice article!

Doug Woodall said on : October 15th, 2007 at 9:46 am

Well done!
This may not work all the time as others have said. But Ive had success in using these procedures in tracking down businesses who have gotten my email from other websites, such as when you use a directory submittal site.

akishore said on : October 15th, 2007 at 9:54 am

TRaef06 and Doug,

Thanks for the positive comments! I wasn’t meaning this to be a super comprehensive guide to detect the location of spam email. Mostly I’ve used this to track down emails from malicious businesses or individuals. Most of them don’t even know how to spoof an IP address!

Thanks!

Russ @ bombay potatoes said on : October 15th, 2007 at 1:52 pm

IP in email is too easy to fake. Nice article though, well done.

Keith said on : October 15th, 2007 at 6:47 pm

Sounds cool… Like it was being said above, it is not always the case whereby you can trace the mail from the originating server; as a single server can be shared by many hosts.

Sunil Thaha said on : October 16th, 2007 at 12:12 am

Do you have any idea on how to traceback a mail sent from a gmail id ?

Chris said on : October 16th, 2007 at 2:00 pm

I had a quick question. Is there any way that you know of to track the IP address for mail coming to just Hotmail?

Nirmal said on : October 17th, 2007 at 5:20 am

This is a great tip. Stumbled.

HASSAN' said on : October 21st, 2007 at 3:38 pm

What a wonderful post.

Shahid Khattak said on : October 22nd, 2007 at 6:26 am

Hi,
Any idea how would it work for Outlook Express 6.0, please?
Cheers,
Shahid.

bLuefrogx said on : November 1st, 2007 at 1:47 am

When going for spammers, I generally look up the IP of the smtp server and report ‘em. I find that lots of people nowadays use webmails, and that doesn’t accurately report the IP address of the sender. Nice tip though

denon said on : November 2nd, 2007 at 8:25 am

Even if you have got a genuine IP I can’t really see how useful knowing the location of the ISP is anyway. No ISP is going to tell you which of their users was using ‘x’ IP address on ‘x’ date at ‘x’ time anyway.

For example, if I sent you an email from where I am and you looked the IP up it would tell you I’m in Ipswich, UK. I am, however, about 40 miles from there, how useful is this?

rav said on : November 2nd, 2007 at 10:55 am

ya.. tried it.. got to know many things… thanks

Carla said on : November 8th, 2007 at 7:10 am

I prefer IP Address Locator

It seems to be more accurate.

Priya said on : November 19th, 2007 at 11:26 pm

I m geeting abused unwanted mail form same mailer many time like to trace him but i have no idea how to do this. please help me out if u can

Matilda said on : November 20th, 2007 at 10:50 pm

If I use outlook express as the default mail and also have access to webmail. My laptop PC is at work but I am replying my emails from another PC. Can the Administrator find out from what PC I am replying to my emails? Remember is an external PC and using an external site to check emails. Please advise. Thanks

JLS said on : November 26th, 2007 at 3:44 pm

This site is cool!
Could I ask something?
Is there any way I can locate the person who uses a different host? Like Friendster.com?
It would really help us, thanks!
JLS

Larry said on : December 2nd, 2007 at 12:38 pm

Thank you for helping me with a problem. you are outstanding!

nikos said on : December 17th, 2007 at 2:08 am

thats perfect all but i want to know how to find the IP number from the hotmail. Thanks to all of you!!!

Manav said on : December 22nd, 2007 at 9:04 am

Great Post. Liked the inforamtion.

firefly said on : December 22nd, 2007 at 4:17 pm

I think i’m a little late in posting my comments (the blog appeared in October & I’m posting my comment in December). The article is really interesting but you have not mentioned how to track an email received on a hotmail account. I want to track an email that I received on my hotmail account but I don’t know how to do it. Someone had told me that I should go to the “options”, click “message display settings” and i’ll find full headers there. But i couldn’t find any “message display settings”, so there’s no way to find full headers. is there a way to track such a mail? how can this be done?

ropke said on : December 27th, 2007 at 4:16 am

good job.you also can paste lattitude to google earth to search directory ans see location from space

XeroX said on : December 27th, 2007 at 5:49 am

I needed to track the location of an e-mail wichi came to me from a suspeciouse person. This was really help ful to me.
thnx

Comstan said on : January 1st, 2008 at 12:23 am

Question for you.

How can I retrieve an email posted a couple years ago and no longer on my pc. Isn’t there a public repository of these email posts? I did a search once (don’t even remember what I queried) and pulled up email messages from several people to others. These were private emails to a party I was not privy to. I need to retrieve some emails that may involve possible posts that indicate wrongdoing if this is possible.

Send to my email or post publicly, your call, but lpease notify me of answer.

Thanks.

Flameviper said on : January 1st, 2008 at 12:26 pm

Proxies!

sagar said on : January 4th, 2008 at 3:49 am

Thanks

800HighTech said on : January 19th, 2008 at 1:56 pm

Great post, very informative…..I also liked your recent posts about wireless security, its amazing how many people are blissfully unaware how many malicious companies and hackers are constantly trying to steal information…

RAbi said on : January 23rd, 2008 at 7:22 am

its good

YO said on : February 2nd, 2008 at 7:27 pm

hey aseem i was just wondering if i could track some one sending from gmail and i also recieving it from gmail ..i ther a way because your thing i tried and didnt work …there was no recieved from…can u help me

yogesh said on : February 17th, 2008 at 7:57 am

how to interfere with the persons computer when i have the ip address, i would like to make fun with my brother

1234567 said on : February 26th, 2008 at 10:02 am

some people here criticize as if they are the brightest people on earth. Come on this guy is just sharing his knowledge. If you find the article not useful to you it does not mean it has no use to every person who will read. full of boastful people generation.

maverick said on : March 1st, 2008 at 1:43 am

is it possible to find out who is chatting with whom using gtalk within gmail too? in this scenario the mail would not be sent, but the chat has been initiated

Rajavanya said on : March 12th, 2008 at 10:49 pm

A Better way to track anonymous, unknown users
http://www.techtola.com/2007/0.....rs-on.html

Jami said on : April 8th, 2008 at 10:58 am

can you tell me, if i have an IP address from a year ago, but still saved it..can you still figure out where the computer was that it came from, I am told IP addresses change withing hours/minutes and it’s no longer trackable?
can someone help me do this?

TechnoLaziness said on : April 13th, 2008 at 3:11 am

Very nicely written article akishore …cheers!
Though I agree that most people have now shifted from desktop email clients to Gmail…but this still is a very informative post.

Teri Runyan said on : May 8th, 2008 at 4:16 pm

I have had the same Yahoo email for 20 years, +or-, when I pull down the arrow to the right of “REPLY” I only have two choices. Reply to Sender or Reply to Everyone I do not know what to do next. Would you help me please. Your article was most informative and I could actually understand some of it. Thanking you in advance, Teri 865.556.9246 Notify me any way its convenient for you.

nandavar k mohan said on : May 21st, 2008 at 12:00 pm

i send out eamil to my clients. is there a way to track and see if they got it and if it went into junk mail.
thanks
mohan

trinket said on : May 26th, 2008 at 7:33 pm

you should try arul’s ip address tracker to detect ip addresses. the url is http://aruljohn.com/track.pl

the trinket gal

Riccardo said on : May 27th, 2008 at 7:28 pm

That is simply great!! thanks a mil for the advice!!!

Riccardo said on : May 27th, 2008 at 7:30 pm

thanks!!!
great tips!

Gene said on : May 29th, 2008 at 12:21 am

for outlook express 6 you must double click on the email then click on file then click properties. when that box comes up click the details tab then click message source and maximize the browser. this will avoid the copy/paste that the blog host spoke about up above.
There are three places that say received. i chose the second one from mine to track but maybe you coukld try all three. It may be that it brings you all to the same place and maybe not. have fun and thanks for allowing me to add my two cents worth.
Gene Wheeler
Topeka KS

bells said on : June 3rd, 2008 at 12:41 am

Is there anyway at all of being able to find out an IP address from just an email addy alone (no email header)? I received a message thru an online auction site’s messaging system, so naturally the IP addy shows up as that of the auction site. The only info I have is the members email addy

litu said on : June 9th, 2008 at 7:00 am

Hi,
But what will you do if you have a dynamic ip which keeps on changing every time you connect to internet.
I tried with what you have explained so nicely, but it did not work for me.The IP address that i got does not match my home’s system ip which is connected to the internet and from which i got a mail.
Please explain.

With Regards

Don said on : June 26th, 2008 at 1:15 pm

Geobytes IP Locator IS NOT ACCUTARE!!

Btb Sales Training Ireland said on : June 29th, 2008 at 6:20 am

Wow, didn’t know you could do this. Thanks for posting.

Jessica said on : July 16th, 2008 at 9:11 pm

THIS IS TOTALLY AWESOME(:

rakesh said on : July 17th, 2008 at 2:38 am

but i couldn’t find the IP address in the header of a mail received from a GMail ID.
do u have any process to trace the email received from a GMail ID?
Thnx!

Nel said on : July 17th, 2008 at 10:20 am

Good but not good enought,
I wish that I can trace the sender up to its telephone and house/office actual address.

Is there any programe to do that?
I’ve seen it in CSI series, not sure whether this is just a fiction.

Mary John said on : July 21st, 2008 at 9:56 am

Thanks for this write up. I received a spam mail and tried using your instruction to trace it. I did trace it and found out it came from a university. The “Whois” ip gave me information about my university network. So, I couldn’t trace further to the particular building or address within the university. How can I trace this further to the original origin.

Thank you

Gerard Espinas said on : July 22nd, 2008 at 1:55 am

I been trying to find an answer on this topic and your article simply explain it clearly.

ann83 said on : July 26th, 2008 at 9:22 am

hi

would somebody would able to tell me how can i track an address through msn??is there any way to check the persons IP address?

thanks

phil said on : August 7th, 2008 at 2:41 am

good to know location but how to know who is the owner( physical person) of the ip ?

Rishi said on : August 9th, 2008 at 3:08 pm

hey !
very interesting blog ,
i m using hotmail account and i want to know
how to track an email received on a hotmail account. I want to track an email that I received on my hotmail account but I don’t know how to do it. Someone had told me that I should go to the “options”, click “message display settings” and i’ll find full headers there. But i couldn’t find any “message display settings”, so there’s no way to find full headers. is there a way to track such a mail? how can this be done?

Pas said on : August 12th, 2008 at 7:03 pm

I find this very interesting real or not. I had a WEBTV and if I were to press forward I could easily see the IP listed but I now I switched to MSNTV2 and I can’t do it anymore. Does anyone have any ideas?

Anonymouus said on : August 14th, 2008 at 10:37 am

Hello

In show original , i am not able to see Recieved From at all in GMAIL. Could you please help me….
Its very urgent…

I can even spend spend some money on tracking this … Could you please help me……….

suhas said on : August 19th, 2008 at 6:25 am

i want to know the location of person with whom i am chatting

Arie Vandenberg said on : August 19th, 2008 at 10:09 am

I’ve been developing on a lot of geo tracking reports based on IP address for the email list manager @ http://www.listrocket.com. There are a few good ip info services out there and I would recommend http://www.ipmango.com for quick lookups. If you want to automate ip lookups, check out the api @ maxmind.com. Both are free services for online ip lookups.

The only downside is that if someone uses web-based mail, then the IP geo data can be inaccurate as it will show the web-mail server IP address.

hogarth said on : August 26th, 2008 at 3:54 pm

hi,
i’m totally incapable of following most of this, thanks for your patience………
a simple question- i’m getting nasty emails from someone with a hotmail account.
can i find out exactly who it is?
is it difficult.
many many thanks

Joe said on : August 27th, 2008 at 6:41 pm

well, I don’t know if this has ever happened. I got 2 different locations on an ip. one from IPLocation and a different one from geobytes. Maybe you can help me figure out the correct one. the IP is 81.199.56.252. One gives Isreal as a location and the other gives Maryland as the other location.

IP Address Locator said on : August 30th, 2008 at 3:56 pm

I think http://www.ipgp.net will help you find this information easily

haider_up32 said on : August 30th, 2008 at 8:10 pm

1.Wont work for G-Mail web interface

2.Works for Yahoo Web

ofcourse outlook too

read the about.com’s guide

Charli said on : August 31st, 2008 at 12:06 pm

I used both sites (http://www.geobytes.com/IpLoca.....cation)and IP2Location (http://www.ip2location.com/free.asp)
to find the location of an ISP. Both came up with different locations for the same numbers. The 1st and 3rd are from IP2 and the 2nd and 4th are from Geobytes. Why would they have such different readings?

(1) 41.202.78.19 CI COTE D’IVOIRE COTE D’IVOIRE TELECOM
(2) 41.202.78.19 Fr Paris 6429
(3) 124.83.200.58 JP JAPAN INTERNET CONTENT PROVIDER
(4) We are unable to locate the address 124.83.200.58 at this time.

Thanks for any light you can shed on this.

haider_up32 said on : September 2nd, 2008 at 9:15 am

Try senderbase.org

nannysarah said on : September 12th, 2008 at 4:49 am

Can someone help me please i have a huge dilema and i dont know what to do.
Long story but here goes.
A few nights ago i sent a friend of mine a very long and extremely personal email. It was from my hotmail account to his hotmail account. An hour later the email i sent him was forwarded from his email account to everyone in his friends list. He is now accusing me of hacking into his account and forwarding the email myself. I DIDNT DO THIS! He says he has friends who know about computers and that he can prove the message i sent him and the forwarded message to his friends both came from my ip address hence i must have done it. He said he went into my original email, right clicked and went down to “view source” and that gave him the ip address of the computer i sent the original email from. He then said he went into the email that was forwarded from his hotmail account and did the same thigs ie. right clicked and “view source” and said that the ip adresses matched so i had to have hacked into his hotmail account and forwarded the message myself. My query is if someone has hacked into my friends hotmail account and forwarded my message how difficult would it be to make it seem it had come from my computer and my ip address? My friend is saying he can prove it was me but it wasnt and im so upset now. Not only are we not talking anymore but he is now threatening to take this further and get police etc involved.
Someone help me please – i dont know what to do

Andy said on : September 12th, 2008 at 11:30 am

I prefer http://www.ipgp.net
It seems to be the most accurate.

Sumit jain said on : October 6th, 2008 at 11:13 am

This information is good enough to understand the mail tracking but if we get some more info regarding this it will more helpful for IT personnel.Kindly send latest info on my mail id.
Thanks

carla said on : October 17th, 2008 at 9:28 am

Or use this:
http://www.ip-adress.com/trace_email/

Mario said on : October 24th, 2008 at 12:14 am

There’s never a question of whether ISPs Want to divulge their client’s IPs, they are all listed in one WHOIS database or another, so it’s not really a “well, they won’t tell” issue. And if a person does ghost their IP, just do a simple tracer -t or pathping -i and follow the source path that way, the real IP will show. Spammers and misusers of email services really stand no chance nowadays, just find their IP out and locate it on a WHOIS database depending on where their location is, and then contact the ISP or other local authorities and their gone. If only more people actually knew and did these things instead of chucking everything into a Junk/Spam folder and letting it accumulate there… Cleaner internet=less lag and more fun

Dani said on : November 3rd, 2008 at 5:46 am

I have been tracking emails this way through gmail for sometime. For the first time I have found one that doesn’t have a “from” IP. How was he able to block this and is there anyway to report him still?

Windows said on : November 15th, 2008 at 1:34 pm

Really cool information.Let me start detective agency now:)

Rakesh said on : November 16th, 2008 at 6:52 am

how could i find the IP address of the email which has been sent from a GMail a/c? GMail is not displaying the IP address for the emails sent from a GMail ID.

col said on : December 2nd, 2008 at 8:43 am

hi if someone could help me, i have been harrased on facebook so i kicked the guy off and now he is harrasing me on my email. i want to track him down, how do u go about doing that on hotmail???

Rahul said on : December 19th, 2008 at 5:52 am

I want to know that i have got a mail which has been forwaded to me and I want to know the Ip and location of the orignal sender.

Kindly advsie/

Gramme said on : December 26th, 2008 at 12:20 pm

thank you for this, you solved my problem…

pavan said on : January 9th, 2009 at 3:41 am

It didn’t work exactly. I got the header but not the IP I wanted………..

Gaspar said on : January 11th, 2009 at 6:31 am

http://www.ipgp.net can be used to track the ip address. You take the sender ip from the email address, and insert it into the website. You will have a gmail map as well.

jay weiss said on : February 3rd, 2009 at 4:37 pm

It is driving me crazy but would you please assist me on how I can find a sender’s ip address on Hotmail? I also have excite.com and it is so easy as all you do is click on this little icon but it is ridiculous on Hotmail Send a step by step method to find it. I really appreciate your assistance! Jay.

Upendraya said on : February 8th, 2009 at 10:30 am

You made some good points there. I did a search on the topic and found most people will agree with your blog.

All computer tips said on : February 16th, 2009 at 7:40 am

Very interesting..

IP Addres “What is it and How to Change it”

Many said on : February 18th, 2009 at 2:48 pm

Good post,
check this online web-based email tracer tool: http://www.myiptest.com/static.....ail-sender

draakje said on : February 27th, 2009 at 10:40 am

hey, please,
has someone got any idea how to track a google mail?
I’ve had some weird emails before and by looking at that IP-adress and that of some of my friends I’ve found most of the idiots.
But now someone is sending mails from google and my brilliant technique (I’m not that good…) doesn’t work anymore!
So please, help me!

career said on : March 17th, 2009 at 4:40 pm

there is an easy way to track an email:
http://www.ip-adress.com/trace_email/

Nebula said on : March 18th, 2009 at 3:26 pm

Hello,

It would be much appreciated if you could help me/give me advice on how to track and IP address through an MSN hotmail account?

I have read some of the posts on your wall and find them completley fascinating! Quality topic!

Thank you in advance!

froggie said on : March 26th, 2009 at 4:30 pm

Is it possible to track someone who is using your email to send messages to someone? Making it look like it’s you corresponding with the other person??

manoj said on : March 27th, 2009 at 1:43 am

sir,
i did see see the header coming with gmails, but it doesnot contain the sender ip. can u suggest something

Donald said on : April 4th, 2009 at 7:34 pm

Is possible to trace someone who is using a proxy or any software to hide the IP addres?

Don Revoy said on : April 7th, 2009 at 10:27 am

Hello,
I just wanted to thank you for your web site. Sometimes tracking a person is quite a challenge. Is there any software that would assist in this matter? If so, because I am not a tecky person, I could use the assistance.
Thank-you
Don Revoy

Mamun said on : May 11th, 2009 at 1:09 am

Location is not accurate………….differs by about 0-20 km.

Mohandas said on : July 10th, 2009 at 12:46 pm

Recently due to some business problem, I had been trying to track the source location of the email which is received by me. Surprisingly it showed a particular place in USA. Before confirming I have checked one of my best friends mail location, and amusingly I found he is also send the mail from USA which is a 100% wrong information. Because, my friend is staying to next to my door, of course not in USA at all. So, come on guys tell me how can I locate the geographical origin location of the mail?

Abdul Rahman said on : July 27th, 2009 at 7:38 am

i want to track an email by mac address
is it possible?

dave said on : August 7th, 2009 at 6:12 am

Could you tell me how to track a I.P. address using outlook express.

montreal flower delivery said on : August 7th, 2009 at 2:25 pm

Wow, that is fantastic information. Thanks

___ said on : August 19th, 2009 at 3:51 pm

I found this website that helps to diagnose headers as well and wanted to share.

mxtoolbox.com/EmailHeaders.aspx

I just started using it and it helps out a lot grazzing through the entire headers.

nathan said on : August 19th, 2009 at 6:31 pm

i had someone hack into my e-mail and forward some e-mails to another e-mail adddress, they left the forwards in the sent file, is there a way to fine who did it by the forward, and who they went too, and a free site to track down the gmail account.

send me info at bdd2bone@yahoo.com

thanks

salman said on : September 6th, 2009 at 7:52 am

if i got an email via someone else, then how we figure out who was the first sender?

need help! said on : September 17th, 2009 at 3:27 pm

My work email address was compromised and someone stole some information. They then sent me an email saying they have these items that are very important to me. I have tried to the reverse IP search and location but I never get the same info. I then did the tracert and with several of the addresses and they all came back with line one as D-link router but this is not possible. I really need help in tracing these emails and how to read the computer jargon….

wilson said on : September 18th, 2009 at 8:12 am

Hi,

I have received an email from Google mail to my yahoo mail box. Can you tell me how I can check the IP address and find the location?

Thanks
Wilson.

samantha said on : September 19th, 2009 at 11:24 pm

So what if you receive an anon email that has used several remailers? Or when you search the IP it says private?

Cezille said on : September 29th, 2009 at 12:25 am

Hi,

I tried this with my own email but the results don’t turn up correctly. Geobytes is giving me the wrong info. How can I be sure I’m getting the right IP address? Because there are many included in the full message header of Yahoo mail….

Thanks.

NME said on : October 1st, 2009 at 10:58 am

how could i find the IP address of the email which has been sent from a GMail a/c? GMail is not displaying the IP address for the emails sent from a GMail ID

idea-boss said on : October 12th, 2009 at 3:31 am

hi all,

To my knowledge i think, following the above method shows the ip address of the provider only. For example, if a person sends an email from location x and we need to find the location of it using the ip, then the result we get from the above methods does not show the location x from where the mail is send, rather it shows the isp location of x.

Is there any ways to find the exact/specific location of x rather than finding the isp location of x, if i am right ?

Sukhvinder Singh said on : October 23rd, 2009 at 6:11 am

Hi,

I tried to find the IP address in MS Outlook. I’m operating in a LAN. But the procedure gave the the IP address of the mail server not the system from which the mail was originally sent. I want IP address of the system firing mail not of the server. Can somebody help please..

Regards
Sukhvinder S

Del Hopkins said on : October 25th, 2009 at 5:35 pm

Here’s a quick web form for tracing email headers:
http://www.myipaddress.mobi/TraceEmail.aspx

Of course, not always very helpful since spammers forge the headers.

cin said on : November 11th, 2009 at 9:54 am

i need further help… the email i’m trying to track has been forwared about 3 times. Here’s the short story, my ex-husband hacked into my email address and sent out a very nasty email to someone. since he deleted everything, i didn’t know about it until the email had been replied back to me. i have been trying to find out where my email originally was accessed from. but the ip address i have shows from where the second party replied from, not were my ex-husband accessed my account. Can you help????

Ilina said on : November 12th, 2009 at 12:03 pm

Dear Aseem,

Honestly, the tips you have published are JUST GREAT! There is an asshole who keeps registering with my first and family name and also uses the name of my company. He keeps e-mailing me – 30-40 mails per day, threatening me, offending me and this lasts for a month. I called the police and the mail provder he uses. no one did anything. Now, I decided to track him back myself, although I am into programming, etc. I tried tracking him but with other websites I either got to his mail provider location or to the one of his internet provider – central office. With the website you suggest – geobytes.com – I succeeded in tracking him finally and am really happy!!! You made my days happy again. !!!! If I meet you, I owe you a GalaDinner at least !!!! Thank you !!

warmest regards,
ilina miteva

Patty said on : November 19th, 2009 at 4:02 am

How do I find the IP of a sender on Hotmail?

Doug Schaefferkoetter said on : November 24th, 2009 at 2:57 am

I need help tracking the origin of an email. I was recently defrauded out of $8900 thinking I was purchasing equipment thru ebay and no agencies (no one) will help. Needless to say, this was a lot of money for me and my family and our Christmas is ruined. I can supply the Gmails but am not savvy enough to figure out how to track backwords. Any assistance is appreciated.

Doug S.

newbie said on : November 25th, 2009 at 7:07 pm

I looked up an ip number and checked the location on both IP2Location and GeoBytes IP Locator.they gave me two different locations.One came up with Arizona and the other with Toronto.

Gandi said on : November 28th, 2009 at 10:09 pm

How can I tell if the location for the IP address is accurate? I looked up an email and I got a location, but I’m not sure if it’s correct. Help?

Anas said on : December 1st, 2009 at 6:01 am

I need to track the email adresses of the people who live in Peshawar, Pakistan. How do I find their exact location? Thanks.

Tessa said on : December 1st, 2009 at 1:37 pm

Hi,

I wonder if you can help me, my former boyfriend has used my secret answers to my hotmail account and used this account to send the following to my partner, the police are looking in to it but progress is very slow. Can you tell me which email address needs to be traced, the content would have orginated from my hotmail account and the different times show the activity, please can you help me?

From Tessa Broad Tue Jul 29 15:47:43 2008
X-Apparently-To: kielyw2000@yahoo.co.uk via 217.146.189.86; Tue, 29 Jul 2008 15:47:44 +0000
Return-Path:
X-Originating-IP: [65.55.116.101]
Authentication-Results: mta143.mail.ukl.yahoo.com from=hotmail.co.uk; domainkeys=neutral (no sig)
Received: from 65.55.116.101 (EHLO blu0-omc3-s26.blu0.hotmail.com) (65.55.116.101)
by mta143.mail.ukl.yahoo.com with SMTP; Tue, 29 Jul 2008 15:47:44 +0000
Received: from BLU104-W44 ([65.55.116.73]) by blu0-omc3-s26.blu0.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.3959);
Tue, 29 Jul 2008 08:47:43 -0700
Message-ID:
Return-Path: tessa.broad@hotmail.co.uk
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary=”_2735fab3-faae-4d97-bd3d-33b756bdc090_”
X-Originating-IP: [86.130.41.73]
From: Tessa Broad
To:
Subject: FW: FreeDating.co.uk – Daily Report – 3 Events

Michael said on : December 4th, 2009 at 9:03 am

Doesn’t work if they send from Yahoo!, for example. So basically useless if they use webmail.

Damber said on : December 10th, 2009 at 7:59 am

Awesome, thanks guys. I’ve been wondering how to track email for years and this helped me finally understand it! Thanks!

shoaib said on : December 11th, 2009 at 1:18 am

you trick works like a charm and its not so perfect but for me it gave what i wanted ,thnx and regards

Robynn said on : December 17th, 2009 at 5:25 pm

Is there a way to track/trace mail from my myspace or facebook accounts?

Would you do it the same way you would from your personal email?

RAM said on : December 25th, 2009 at 12:48 am

Dear Sir,

I read your knowledgeful article on how to track emails. I am pretty satisfied. I want to know what if i am given a different ip adress every time I start with my reliance net connection. Please also tell me what is sub-netting system where one ip adress is shared by more then one end users.

regards,
ram

Richard said on : December 30th, 2009 at 4:54 pm

Fantastic, this is the best info I’ve gotten so far on tracking the location of emails.

Linda said on : January 9th, 2010 at 7:40 am

I followed your directions and have had most ip locators turn up a Sunnyvale, CA location, although, when I put the ip address into geobytes, it turned up New York City, NY.

I would have thought this to be incorrect off the bat, due to that all of the others said Sunnyvale, but the sender at one time referred to New York, so which is correct? How do I find out?

Thanks for whatever you have on this, Linda

gopal said on : January 12th, 2010 at 10:49 pm

If someone sends me an e-mail from Gmail, how to track it? Please help me. Above guidelines not helping me!

akp said on : January 13th, 2010 at 4:24 am

Hi i want to know how to trace the IP address/message header of sender from gmail chat?

Domdom said on : January 22nd, 2010 at 2:59 am

Great info, and personnaly helped me track a conman. Thanks !

Vinu said on : January 24th, 2010 at 2:05 pm

Could you tell me, how to track a person with their mobile/landline number?

Anne said on : January 24th, 2010 at 2:33 pm

I have been receiving harassing and threats of violence on Facebook via private messages. I keep blocking the person sending me the messages but he returns immediately with another fake account. I want find out how to trace IP addresses of people how message you on Facebook. I would pass on the IP address to the police to have this person prosecuted for harassment and stalking. I just need to know how to do it! I have tried a run cmd.exe command with the URL of the person who is messaging me but this did not work.

leo said on : January 25th, 2010 at 10:22 am

but how can we check/view a private IP? is there a way to view it? if you do, please email me how to leoudtohan@yahoo.com

Nicole said on : January 31st, 2010 at 2:45 am

Is there a way you can find out the ip address of someone who left a comment/question on formspring.me????

Or how to find the ip address of someone who left comments on blogs?