If someone is harassing you via email or flooding your inbox with junk mail, you may want to find the location of the email sender, by identifying the email sender IP address. This can now be done very simple using the online tool developed by XMyIP.com.

Every email received contains the routing of the email and the originating IP of the email sender. Not all emails can be traced back to the originating point but most of them can.

First step: get the email headers

No matter what email application you are using, the headers are usually just one right-click away. Here is how to find them for the most common email programs:

  • Gmail  – Open the email. In the upper right corner of the email, you’ll see the word Reply with a little down arrow to the right. Click the down arrow and choose Show Original (see more details below).
  • Yahoo! Mail – Right-click the email in the inbox and choose View Full Headers (see more details below).
  • Windows Live Mail – Right-click the email while it’s in the inbox, choose Properties, then click the Details tab.
  • Hotmail – Right-click the email in the inbox and choose View Message Source.
  • Outlook – Right-click the email while it’s in the inbox and choose Message Options. A window will open with the headers in the bottom of the window.

How to get the email header in Gmail

 

Here is what you have to do:

  1. Login to your Gmail account using your username and password.
  2. Open the email for which you want to find out the sender’s IP address.
  3. Click on the inverted triangle beside Reply. Select Show Orginal.
    find ip address email sender gmail
  4. Look for Received: from followed by the IP address between square brackets [ ].Received: from 123.123.155.63 [123.123.155.63] by mx250o.mysite4now.com with SMTP;
  5. If you find more than one Received: from patterns, select the last one.

How to get the email header in Yahoo! Mail

Here is what you have to do to get the email header in Yahoo! Mail:

1. Log into your Yahoo! Mail.
2. Click on Inbox or any folder where you have stored your mail.
3. Open the mail.
4. In the top right region where the content of the email is shown, you’ll see there is a drop-down option where Standard Header or Compact Header is selected by default.

find ip address email sender yahoo! mail

5. Click on it and choose Full Header.

find ip address email sender yahoo! mail - track received

How to get the email header in Microsoft Outlook

Here is what you have to do to get the email header in Microsoft Outlook:

1. Start Microsoft Outlook.
2. Open a message (Double click on message header in order to open it in a window).
3. On the View menu, click Options.
4. Under the Delivery options in the Internet Headers box, you can see the mail header information.

Find IP address email sender Microsoft Outlook - Outlook headers

Second step: trace the email sender IP address

After you find the headers, copy them to the clipboard (Ctrl+C). Next, go to XMyIP.com email trace page, paste the header (Ctrl+V) and press Trace button. Further, you will get a table containing the IP address of the sender and IP addresses of the servers that have routed the email.

Trace Email Sender IP

Find details info about the IP address

The next step is to find additional info regarding the IP address or addresses listed on the Trace page. Simply click on the IP and see the location (country, city, region) and the name of the ISP and organization that manage the IP.

You need to be aware that the listed info may be misleading. If the sender uses a VPN or other hide IP tool, then the IP address listed is the one of a VPN server not the original IP address of the sender.

What to do next?

Next, there are several actions you may take against the person that sent you spam or harassment messages:

  • Simply mark the message as spam and future messages will be automatically sent to the Spam folder.
  • Contact the ISP and report the issue. And, they will be able to identify the user of the IP address and solve the complaint.
  • Report the IP to AbuseIPDB.com.
  • Finally, you may contact the local Police.