View RAW message source of an email in Outlook 2013

182

32

How can I view the source of an email in Outlook 2013?

I want to see the exact email source, as I can do in Gmail or in Mozilla Thunderbird. I'm particularly interested in the top matter (headers?). Here's an example, courtesy Gmail.

Delivered-To:
Received: by 10.50.110.41 with SMTP id hx9csp12093igb;
        Wed, 19 Sep 2012 01:36:43 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.229.137.133 with SMTP id w5mr1607897qct.21.1348043802480;
        Wed, 19 Sep 2012 01:36:42 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path: <noreply@github.com>
Received: from smtp1-ext.rs.github.com (smtp1-ext.rs.github.com. [207.97.227.250])
        by mx.google.com with ESMTP id 5si930058qcy.70.2012.09.19.01.36.42;
        Wed, 19 Sep 2012 01:36:42 -0700 (PDT)
Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of noreply@github.com designates 207.97.227.250 as permitted sender) client-ip=207.97.227.250;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of noreply@github.com designates 207.97.227.250 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=noreply@github.com
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2012 01:36:41 -0700
From: Louis <notifications@github.com>
Reply-To: rg3/youtube-dl <reply+i-4883054-e3dc1a39bd6fec305e5564ef8b3375860908afb5-105314@reply.github.com>
To: rg3/youtube-dl <youtube-dl@noreply.github.com>
Message-Id: <rg3/youtube-dl/issues/355/8684287@github.com>
In-Reply-To: <rg3/youtube-dl/issues/355@github.com>
References: <rg3/youtube-dl/issues/355@github.com>
Subject: Re: [youtube-dl] Youtube Download Slows Down after 10 seconds (#355)
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=mimepart_50598419db896_3241ecda741010
Precedence: list
List-Archive: https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl
List-Id: rg3/youtube-dl <youtube-dl.rg3.github.com>
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X-Github-Reason: comment
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--mimepart_50598419db896_3241ecda741010
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: Quoted-printable
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Colonel Panic

Posted 2012-09-19T09:06:30.377

Reputation: 9 529

Similar question was once asked at Microsoft's Technet, but wasn't understood http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-GB/officeitpropreview/thread/fefb605c-9637-4c6c-b4ff-d786ea47e089

– Colonel Panic – 2012-09-19T10:51:38.437

Answers

219

Headers

  1. Open the particular email in a new window by double-clicking on the message in the message list. (This is important, it's not enough to be just looking at the message in what Outlook calls the 'reading pane'.)
  2. Follow the menu File | Info | Properties
  3. Look for a text area labelled Internet headers
  4. Here are the headers. Select and copy the text to a text editor.

Content

  1. Open message in a new window
  2. On the Message ribbon, select Action | Other Actions | View Source.

Colonel Panic

Posted 2012-09-19T09:06:30.377

Reputation: 9 529

10You can also get the Content ("View source") by right-clicking the body of the message and choosing "View source". – Curtis Yallop – 2014-07-31T15:45:22.330

2Note that "View source" will be greyed out for text-only messages. – Chris – 2014-09-09T14:48:50.220

6Note that this only includes the content outlook is displaying. If a email has both html and text, you can't see the text version. – bradlis7 – 2014-11-13T20:37:03.017

7This one still does not show the embedded base64 images. – kaptan – 2014-12-18T01:01:33.910

How can I show the public key that has been used for signing? – maja – 2015-10-10T09:59:40.103

7This doesn't show the raw contents of multipart mime attachments. – Rory – 2015-11-11T08:43:22.020

40

  1. Open message in new window
  2. On the Message tab select Actions dropdown (next to Move button)
  3. Select Other Actions → Source

user218981

Posted 2012-09-19T09:06:30.377

Reputation: 517

I think the two answers together are correct, one for the headers and the other for the body. – David Thielen – 2014-10-17T11:36:26.507

In my Outlook 2013 Source is not shown under the Other Actions dropdown. The closest there is [show] Message Headers. – JHBonarius – 2018-12-27T12:06:11.140

10In Outlook 2013, this gives me the source of the message body, but not the header. – Highly Irregular – 2014-03-10T03:00:19.723

4@HighlyIrregular is correct. All you see is the raw HTML that corresponds to the BODY of the email, but not the internet headers. The accepted answer by colonelPanic is correct. – Knox – 2014-03-12T15:37:10.237

18

Is File - Info - Properties not working to display the headers?

This answer is from here: email.about.com

Make the complete message source available in Outlook

To set up Outlook so you can see the complete source of emails:

Press Windows-R
Type "regedit".
Hit Enter.
For Outlook 2013:
    Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Outlook\Options\Mail
Select Edit | New | DWord from the menu.
Type "SaveAllMIMENotJustHeaders".
Hit Enter.
Double-click the newly created SaveAllMIMENotJustHeaders value.
Type "1".
Click OK.
Close the registry editor.
Restart Outlook if it has been running.

See the complete source of a message in Outlook

Now you can retrieve the source of newly retrieved POP messages (editing the SaveAllMIMENotJustHeaders value does not restore the complete message source for emails that were already in Outlook):

Click on the desired message with the right mouse button in the Outlook mailbox.
Select Options... from the menu.
Find the message source under the (now improperly named) Internet headers: section.

Langhard

Posted 2012-09-19T09:06:30.377

Reputation: 560

2This does not work for me. The "message header" option simply toggles showing the From, To, and Subject at the top of the message. The view source option, and the actions->view in browser then viewing that source, both show the cleaned up HTML by outlook, not the original message source – chiliNUT – 2015-11-06T17:33:35.993

1This is the only 100% correct answer. Where you could only check message headers, now you can check the whole raw content (attachments, boundaries, resources headers, charsets, etc.) - and this is waaaay different than viewing the message source. – Charles Roberto Canato – 2015-11-27T00:24:52.957

I tried, but it doesn't work for me now. I also used Process monitor to catch reads to registry, but Outlook doesn't try to read SaveAllMIMENotJustHeaders... – stej – 2016-09-07T09:46:45.483

3

Hm, probably because meaning it works with POP3 and IMAP accounts only (and EAS in Outlook 2013), not Exchange server mailboxes http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/email/view-the-message-source-in-outlook/

– stej – 2016-09-07T09:53:30.163

In Outlook 2013, I have no Options... option under the right-click menu described. – JHBonarius – 2018-12-27T12:09:02.147

Thanks Riscie, I followed the instructions and the menu item appeared. However this only shows me the HTML source for the message content, not the top matter or headers. I've clarified my question above. – Colonel Panic – 2012-09-19T10:22:08.007

4@ColonelPanic - The internet header information listed in Message Options is the content your looking for. – Ramhound – 2012-09-19T11:21:09.403

3

The add-on Message Header Analyzer for Outlook 2013 and Outlook Online provides a well-formatted overview.

Message Header Analyzer

Kristian

Posted 2012-09-19T09:06:30.377

Reputation: 281

1This shows only headers, not body. – stej – 2016-09-07T09:52:03.023

Asked: 2012-09-19T09:06:30.377

Viewed: 254 680 times

Active: 2017-12-10T22:02:20.573