Email header analyzer

What is an email header analyzer?

The email header analyzer tool lets you dig deep into an email, such as the source IP, authenticity, hops, and other details. The email headers reveal more information about each component of an email, like the subject, sender address, and header content.

How does Zoho Toolkit analyze email headers?

Zoho Toolkit comes with a bundle of tools that help you check and manage all of the technical aspects of your domain. One such tool is a email header analyzer. You can copy your original message from your email client and paste it into the designated box on Toolkit. Once you click Analyze, Toolkit provides you with details categorized into three different sections: message details, hop details, and other details.

As the name suggests, the message details section comprises the sender name, subject, email origin date, and message ID, while the hop details section gives us information about the multiple hops an email has taken before reaching its final destination. The other details section contains information on the authentication status, protocol checks, ARC seal, MIME version, content type, and other crucial elements that an email carries.

What can a email header analyzer do?

Analyze sender information: As you get to know the sender's IP, authentication status, and email route with the help of the analyzer, it will be easy for you to conclude if emails from a sender are safe or not.

Identify spam/phishing attempts: If you find malicious activity, or if the authentication fails while checking the email route, you can flag the sender as spam once you’ve tracked the necessary information about them.

Identify the email route: The hop details tab will provide you with the multiple mail server hops an email has taken before reaching the receiver's inbox. This also includes the from and to address, time stamps, delays, and the protocol used during the transmission.

Components of an email header

Authentication results: Email authentication mechanisms like SPF, DKIM, and DMARCare essential for email delivery. These work together to verify the identity of the sender. A header analyzer can also check which of the authentication checks have passed.

Return path: This is the address to which an email gets delivered if it fails at the receiver's end. It’s advised to have a common email address to collect all bounced emails and report high traffic to the address if there are too many bounces.

Sender: The sender path indicates the email account through which the origin of the email was created. It can also list the path taken by the sender server when the request was initiated, or the SMTPhop path. Multiple hop points show that there have been multiple touchpoints for the email before getting delivered to its receiver.

ARC seal: An authenticated received chain (ARC) is an email standard similar to the DKIM signature. It captures a snapshot of an email header and encapsulates all of the authentication pieces. Similar to DKIM, it also has indicates values like fail, pass, or none.

Content type: This field tells you about the type of content used in an email and also specifies if any encoding is performed.

MIME: Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension (MIME) is an Internet standard that takes care of all sorts of attachments that come with an email, such as audio, video, GIF, document files, and more. Typically, MIME version 1.0 is used for all of these transactions.

TLS: The Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol ensures that the email reaches its destination safely without any tampering. TLS is an encryption method that prevents email from eavesdropping.

Unsubscribe list: This field contains an email address through which you can unsubscribe to stop any future mailers from the sender.