How to Check Email Headers from Spam Messages

I decided to do this blog on spam mail as it is so easy to to just open an email message that the email client hasn’t detected as spam.

Some people don’t know or understand what email message headers are so I will be using screenshots to show people how you read message headers.

Email message headers basically tell you who the email message is from and the route over the Internet the message has taken.

A few times I have email messages that say the message came from me, this is known as email spoofing and is often used by spammers.

Every time you open a spam message you are paying the spammer when you click on a link within the email message and you are also letting the spammer know that your email address is an active one.

Screenshot 1 below shows a highlighted spam message I received the other day with a red flag and a green square.

Screenshot 1: Highlighted Spam Message

The red flag represents a task needing to be completed in this case it was set for Saturday 28th March and the task was to do this blog on identifying spam.

The green square represents a strategy and that strategy being this blog.

The next screenshot will now show you the steps required to determine if the email message is actually spam.

By right clicking on the email message you are given several options for this blog we are going to select Message Options as shown in Screenshot 2.

Screenshot 2: Email Options Menu

The screenshot below now shows the message header showing who the email message was sent to and the return path of the email message.

In this example I don’t know who bobbylpueo@perpetuallyroseroad.cn is, so it is safe to say this person has sent  me unsolicited junk mail.

Screenshot 3: Message Header

Now that we have determined the email message is spam mail we have several options available for our disposal.

One you can simply delete the email message but you then have the off chance that this person will keep spamming you and these messages will go directly to your inbox.

The second and preferred option is to add this spammer to the junk mail list as I am about to show you in the next screenshot.

To do this you need to left click on the email message to highlight it and then right click to bring up the email options menu.

Go down to Junk Email highlight it and another menu will appear as shown in the screenshot below.

Screenshot 4: Junk Email Options

We know this is spam so what we are going to do is Add Sender to Blocked Senders List, what this will do is send the email message to the Junk Email folder.

In the future if you get email from this person it will automatically go to the Junk Mail folder as shown in the next screenshot.

Screenshot 5: Junk Email Folder

Though I have used Outlook 2007 for this blog this applies for most email programs and web based email services such as Hotmail, Yahoo, Google Mail etc.