How to Find the IP Address of an Email Sender

It depends greatly on what application you are using to send and receive email with as to the exact steps that should be taken to find out the IP address. If you even can with your current application.

You can find out the IP address "used" to send the email ... but it doesn't necessarily mean that it is a legitimate IP address. That is, there are ways that people can cover their true IP address... and there is no way short of a court order for records from the owner of the IP address used to find out who is actually behind the email.

Also, often, there isn't much information to be gained from knowing a sender' s IP address. As, a lot of internet connections dynamically assign IP addresses to the user whenever the user logs on... meaning, they get a new IP address each time they logon to the internet. On the other hand, there are internet connections that have static IP addresses... meaning, they don't change... that IP address is assigned to that particular connection period unless the user requests it to be changed at some point.

So there are a lot of "if's" in this situation. With that said, I will assume that the person sending the email is not trying to hide their IP address.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• An email application that allows you to view the "header" information of an email message.

1. Well, about the only step there is, is to find in your email application where it says something about "View Headers". I personally, use Mozilla's email application that comes with it automatically... and that is where the image comes from. Netscape will also allow this... "View/Headers/All" from the menu. I am certain that other applications offer this as well, including web mail like Yahoo. It's just a matter of finding the right option.

2. Generally, in the "Received" section is where you want to look. You may need to run a "whois" to determine if you might have the right IP address (usually you have a good idea of where it should be coming from)... this can be done at this web address:
   
   http://www.arin.net/index.shtml

3. There are also programs that you can use that will analyze the header information of an email. All you have to do is copy and paste all of the header information and it will tell you what it thinks. The program that comes to mind is called Sam Spade. It is a free program and can be downloaded from a variety of places... but here is one link:
   
   http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,4709-order,1-page,1-c,spamblockers/description.html

4. If you are wanting to do this to stop some sort of spam... good luck! They use all kinds of techniques to cover themselves. The best thing that you can do in a situation like that is to report it:
   
   http://www.ftc.gov/spam/

Tips & Warnings

• Know that it is easy for anyone to cover their IP address in an email via remailers, shells and such.
• Don't be to 100% certain on the conclusions you come to unless you know for certain that the sender is not covering their IP address.
• These are just general guidelines to finding the IP address if an email sender. It can be much more complicated than indicated here... especially if the sender is using proxy servers to bounce the email from place to place to place before it finally hits your computer.

[revisitingnixon]

on 6/4/2007 Congrats on having this article be picked as the winner for the "Top Written Requested How to Article!" Check out the forums and see which other winners we have this week. Check it out at:

http://www.ehow.com/community/forums/topic_15235_top-most-requested-articles:-weekly-submission-winners.aspx

-Rich