View RAW message source of an email in Outlook 2013

Question

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.

Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of [email protected] designates 207.97.227.250 as permitted sender) client-ip=207.97.227.250;
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


--mimepart_50598419db896_3241ecda741010
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: Quoted-printable
Content-Disposition: inline

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, Sep 19 '12 at 10:51
(That's not a complete message, just the headers and the first few lines of the main body.) — tripleee, Jun 13 '22 at 15:04

score 252 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 10:14

252

Headers

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'.)
Follow the menu File | Info | Properties
Look for a text area labelled Internet headers
Here are the headers. Select and copy the text to a text editor.

Content

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

edited Apr 13 '17 at 10:14

IInspectable

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answered Sep 19 '12 at 13:56

Colonel Panic

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You can also get the Content ("View source") by right-clicking the body of the message and choosing "View source". – Curtis Yallop Jul 31 '14 at 15:45
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Note that "View source" will be greyed out for text-only messages. – Chris Sep 09 '14 at 14:48
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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 Nov 13 '14 at 20:37
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This one still does not show the embedded base64 images. – kaptan Dec 18 '14 at 01:01
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How can I show the public key that has been used for signing? – maja Oct 10 '15 at 09:59
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This doesn't show the raw contents of multipart mime attachments. – Rory Nov 11 '15 at 08:43
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Beware! The data displayed with "View Source" is not necessarily the exact original data that has been received. I have come across a case where non-display content parts were in the message, but hidden from both, "Internet Headers" as well as "View Source"! – not2savvy Mar 05 '21 at 13:38
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Also if the contents was quoted-printable or base64 encoded, this will display the decoded contents. So in fact, "View source" does not actually display the source, but it displays (1) only the textual part of the source, (2) only that part that is displayed, (3) not the raw source but a source that has already been processed in some undocumented way (decoded at least). – not2savvy Apr 16 '21 at 09:23

score 44 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 22 '13 at 20:31

44

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

edited Apr 22 '13 at 20:31

Brad Patton

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answered Apr 22 '13 at 20:05

user218981

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In Outlook 2013, this gives me the source of the message body, but not the header. – Highly Irregular Mar 10 '14 at 03:00
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@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 Mar 12 '14 at 15:37
I think the two answers together are correct, one for the headers and the other for the body. – David Thielen Oct 17 '14 at 11:36
In my Outlook 2013 `Source` is not shown under the `Other Actions` dropdown. The closest there is [show] `Message Headers`. – JHBonarius Dec 27 '18 at 12:06

score 20 · Answer 3 · edited Dec 10 '17 at 22:00

20

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.

edited Dec 10 '17 at 22:00

Peter Mortensen

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answered Sep 19 '12 at 09:44

Langhard

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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 Sep 19 '12 at 10:22
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@ColonelPanic - The internet header information listed in `Message Options` is the content your looking for. – Ramhound Sep 19 '12 at 11:21
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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 Nov 06 '15 at 17:33
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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 Nov 27 '15 at 00:24
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 Sep 07 '16 at 09:46
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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 Sep 07 '16 at 09:53
In Outlook 2013, I have no `Options...` option under the right-click menu described. – JHBonarius Dec 27 '18 at 12:09

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 14 '15 at 07:43

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

answered Oct 14 '15 at 07:43

Kristian

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This shows only headers, not body. – stej Sep 07 '16 at 09:52

View RAW message source of an email in Outlook 2013

4 Answers4

Headers

Content

Linked