How to Analyze Email Headers
Complete guide to analyzing email headers for troubleshooting
Table of Contents
How to Analyze Email Headers
Analyzing email headers involves extracting headers, reviewing authentication results, tracking routing paths, identifying delays, and understanding delivery issues. Header analysis helps diagnose delivery problems, verify authentication, track email routing, and understand why emails fail to deliver or are filtered as spam.
Use our email header analyzer to automatically extract and analyze headers, including authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), routing path, RFC compliance, and timing information to troubleshoot delivery issues.
Regular header analysis helps identify delivery problems early, verify authentication is working, and optimize email delivery performance.
Authentication Analysis
SPF Analysis
Check Received-SPF or Authentication-Results headers for SPF results. Look for "pass", "fail", "softfail", or "neutral" results. Verify SPF records if authentication fails.
DKIM Analysis
Review DKIM-Signature headers and Authentication-Results for DKIM verification. Check for "pass" or "fail" results. Verify DKIM configuration if signatures fail.
DMARC Analysis
Check Authentication-Results headers for DMARC policy results. Look for "pass", "fail", or "quarantine" results. Verify DMARC records if policy fails.
Comprehensive Authentication
Use our email authentication checker to verify all authentication protocols based on header information.
Routing Analysis
Received Headers
Analyze Received headers from bottom to top (oldest to newest) to trace the email's complete routing path from sender to recipient.
Server Identification
Identify each server in the routing path, checking for unexpected servers, routing loops, or misconfigurations.
IP Address Analysis
Check IP addresses in Received headers against blacklists using our domain health check.
Routing Verification
Verify that emails are taking expected routing paths and not being misrouted through unnecessary servers.
Delay Analysis
Timestamp Comparison
Compare timestamps in Received headers to calculate time differences between server hops and identify where delays occur.
Delay Identification
Large time gaps between Received headers indicate delays. Identify which server or network segment is causing slow delivery.
Performance Issues
Timestamp analysis reveals server performance problems, network congestion, or timeout issues affecting delivery speed.
Optimization
Use delay analysis to identify bottlenecks and optimize email delivery performance.
Header Analysis Tools
Use comprehensive header analysis tools for automated analysis:
Our Email Header Analyzer
Our email header analyzer provides comprehensive analysis:
- Header extraction from email files (.eml, .msg) or source code
- Detailed authentication analysis (SPF, DKIM, DMARC)
- Routing path visualization and analysis
- List headers validation and RFC compliance (RFC 2369, RFC 8058)
- Formatted header display with complete analysis
- Security and delivery issue identification
Analysis Steps
- Extract headers from email
- Review authentication results
- Analyze routing path
- Check timestamps for delays
- Identify issues and solutions
