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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: <[email protected]>
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 [email protected] 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 [email protected] designates 207.97.227.250 as permitted sender) [email protected]
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2012 01:36:41 -0700
From: Louis <[email protected]>
Reply-To: rg3/youtube-dl <reply+i-4883054-e3dc1a39bd6fec305e5564ef8b3375860908afb5-105314@reply.github.com>
To: rg3/youtube-dl <[email protected]>
Message-Id: <rg3/youtube-dl/issues/355/[email protected]>
In-Reply-To: <rg3/youtube-dl/issues/[email protected]>
References: <rg3/youtube-dl/issues/[email protected]>
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>
List-Post: <mailto:reply+i-4883054-e3dc1a39bd6fec305e5564ef8b3375860908afb5-105314@reply.github.com>
X-Github-Reason: comment
List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:unsub+i-4883054-e3dc1a39bd6fec305e5564ef8b3375860908afb5-105314@reply.github.com>


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4 Answers 4

Reset to default
259

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.
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  • 14
    You can also get the Content ("View source") by right-clicking the body of the message and choosing "View source".
    – Curtis Yallop
    Commented Jul 31, 2014 at 15:45
  • 5
    Note that "View source" will be greyed out for text-only messages.
    – Chris
    Commented Sep 9, 2014 at 14:48
  • 9
    Note 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
    Commented Nov 13, 2014 at 20:37
  • 7
    This one still does not show the embedded base64 images.
    – kaptan
    Commented Dec 18, 2014 at 1:01
  • 12
    This doesn't show the raw contents of multipart mime attachments.
    – Rory
    Commented Nov 11, 2015 at 8:43
45
  1. Open message in new window
  2. On the Message tab select Actions dropdown (next to Move button)
  3. Select Other Actions → Source
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4
  • 13
    In Outlook 2013, this gives me the source of the message body, but not the header.
    – Highly Irregular
    Commented Mar 10, 2014 at 3:00
  • 5
    @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
    Commented Mar 12, 2014 at 15:37
  • I think the two answers together are correct, one for the headers and the other for the body.
    – David Thielen
    Commented Oct 17, 2014 at 11:36
  • In my Outlook 2013 Source is not shown under the Other Actions dropdown. The closest there is [show] Message Headers.
    – JHBonarius
    Commented Dec 27, 2018 at 12:06
21

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.
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7
  • 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
    Commented Sep 19, 2012 at 10:22
  • 4
    @ColonelPanic - The internet header information listed in Message Options is the content your looking for.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Sep 19, 2012 at 11:21
  • 3
    This 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
    Commented Nov 6, 2015 at 17:33
  • 2
    This 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
    Commented Nov 27, 2015 at 0:24
  • 4
    Hm, probably because meaning it works with POP3 and IMAP accounts only (and EAS in Outlook 2013), not Exchange server mailboxes slipstick.com/outlook/email/view-the-message-source-in-outlook
    – stej
    Commented Sep 7, 2016 at 9:53
3

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

Message Header Analyzer

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  • 1
    This shows only headers, not body.
    – stej
    Commented Sep 7, 2016 at 9:52

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