How Can I Determine the Origin of a Company's Email Address?

Track down where an email originted from.

Use the company's domain name to locate its web host. Various services on the Internet will give you general or specific locations. Otherwise you can break down an email header to find the IP address, although this only gives you a general location.

Instructions

Email Headers

1. Open the email sent to you.

2. Open the email Internet header. In AOL this is accomplished by clicking on the "Action" button and selecting "View Message Source" from the drop-down menu. In Microsoft Outlook, go to the "View" menu and select "Options" -- the header is located in the "Internet Headers" field. In GMail, click "More Options," then "Show Original." In Yahoo, click the "Actions" button and select "View Full Header" from the drop-down menu.

3. Examine the email Internet header. Every time this email was routed to a new server on its way to your inbox it got stamped with a new header entry indicating where the email was "Received: from... by.... via... with... ID... for..." along with the date and time. Scroll down and find the first header entry stamped in this email-- he first header entry is always the last entry listed in the email Ynternet header. Copy the IP address listed in the "from" field of this header entry. IP addresses are distinct numerical identifiers. It's a series of four numbers separated by three decimal points (for example, 202.34.596.12).

4. Use an IP address tracer (such as the one offered in the resource section of this article) to track down the general origin of a company's email. IP address tracers can tell you the country, state, and city area where an IP address is assigned.

Domain Name Search

1. Identify the domain name portion of a company's email address. A domain name is a unique identifier associated with an institution, organization, business or some other entity. In an email address, the domain name follows the "@" symbol. For instance, in the mock email address "[e-mail]," "BBarker" is what's known as the username, and " PicklesPicklesPickles.com" is the domain name.

2. Use an internet Domain Name Service (DNS) to translate the domain name to its equivalent IP address. Every domain name resolves to an IP address. An IP address is a distinct numerical identifier associated with a computer connected to the Internet. You may use the "Network Solutions: Whois behind that domain name?" resource link provided in this article.

3. Use an IP address tracer (such as the one offered in the resource section of this article) to track down the general origin of a company's email. IP address tracers can tell you the country, state and city area where an IP address is assigned.

Tips & Warnings

• Emails sent from companies located outside of the United States include a country ID as a part of their domain name. For example, domain names ending in "ca" come from Canada. Those ending in "fr" come from France.

References

• MIT: IP Addresses, Host Names, and Domain Names
• University of Cincinnati: How to Trace an Email

Resources

• Network Solutions: Whois Behind that Domain Name?
• IP Tracer and IP Locator