Did you know that there is more than one address attached to every email you send? Firstly, there is your email address, which lets the recipient know who it’s coming from. But there is also your IP address, which can reveal information about your location. Before you start getting worried, this can actually be a helpful tool, so keep reading to find out how to use an email IP address to your advantage.

The basics of email metadata

As it turns out, there is much more information attached to an email header than what you initially see. The term “metadata” is basically used to describe a set of data that describes other data, hence why it is “meta”. In this case, the data is the email, and the metadata reveals more intricate and structured details about the email. A good example of this in a different context is a document; the document itself is the data, but information about its creation date, date last modified, author, etc. is the metadata associated with that document.

Emails include this metadata for various informational and practical purposes. Your email provider uses it on the backend to authenticate and determine the route of the email. You can use it to determine where the email came from. Depending on your provider, you might have access to different information, but here is a brief list of what you might find in an email header:

From/To — This is probably the first piece of information you look for when receiving an email. It gives you a basic idea of who sent the email via their email address, and who else is CCed (carbon copy) or BCCed (blind carbon copy) on it. 

Subject — Usually, this is where people’s interest in email metadata ends during a casual exchange. The subject is a brief one/two-sentence line to summarize the content of the email.

Reply-To/Return-Path — Sometimes senders prefer responses to be rerouted to a different recipient for organizational purposes; Reply-To makes this automatic. Additionally, sometimes emails never reach their destination, also known as “bouncing”; Return-Path indicates where these emails should go.

Content-type — This is almost like an automatic subject line for the metadata itself, as it describes whether plaintext/HTML is used and also if there are any other files attached like video, audio, and photos. Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) make it possible to use attachments and more complex attributes within an email, like buttons.

Authentication-Results/Received-SPF/ARC-Message-Signature — Although they are technically different, all of these indicate various verification processes carried out as the email travels from server to server. This curbs forgery and identifies any intermediaries involved in sending the email.

This isn’t all. But of course, the last one we’ll mention is the Received line which includes an email IP address (or the IP address of the sender). We will dive into that next. 

Where to find an email IP address

Every email provider is different. Not all email providers include the sender’s IP address, however, practically all major providers do. As a bonus, it’s quite easy to extract, Here’s how to access a full email header with the providers you may be the most familiar with:

Gmail

• Open the email you wish to inspect.
• Select the three dots beside the email header in the top right to reveal a drop-down menu.
• Select Show Original to view the full email header in a new tab.
  

Outlook

• Double-click on the email you wish to inspect to reveal more options.
• Select File > Properties.
• The full email header will be displayed in the Internet Headers portion of the Properties window.
  

iCloud

• Open the email you wish to inspect.
• On the top bar select View > Message > Raw Source
• A window will open containing the full email header.
  

Yahoo!

• Open the email you wish to inspect.
• Select More near the top of the message display.
• Select View Raw Message to reveal the full email header in a new tab.

Once you are viewing the full email header, you will see Received: by quite a few times. Ignore that and skip down to where it says Received: from. On that line of data, you will see a number, typically 4 components separated by 3 dots inside a set of brackets. Bingo! You just located the email IP address of the person who sent you the email.

Does this mean anyone can access your originating IP address via email?

The answer depends on what service you use, along with some other factors. Some email providers use something called a desktop client, meaning it operates through software downloaded directly to your computer, divorced from your web browser. This is popular among Outlook users specifically. Sending an email from a desktop client has the potential to reveal your originating IP address, meaning the one that is associated with your specific device. However, sending an email through a browser like Gmail will attach one of Google’s IP addresses, which is much less specific. 

Typically, it is difficult to trace the personal IP address of someone using a browser-based email provider. However, sometimes an optional field, X-Originating-IP, is included in the email header which will reveal the originating IP address. In Gmail, whether or not this field is included can depend on whether the email is being sent from an app, or if your email has a custom domain associated with it, like a business or education email address. You may have to manually adjust your settings to remove it.

Who would want your IP address anyway?

Originating IP addresses that are linked to your device can be used by hackers and spammers to include you in their schemes. It may make you a bigger target for nefarious activity through other means, which will put you at a higher risk of having your money or identity stolen or even being stalked. Your IP address allows these bad actors to make their attempts to reach you more personalized, which may leave you more easily fooled. All this to say, you don’t want your IP address in the hands of the wrong person. 

You, as the recipient, can also use an IP address attached to an email to identify spam or phishing emails. Once you’ve extracted the IP address from the full email header, you can use online reverse lookup tools like WhatIsMyIP.com to find out if an email is coming from its expected location. Additionally, if the IP listed in the Received: from the field is not specific or unavailable, you may also be able to use other Received fields to identify which servers the email has moved through. Rule of thumb: hide your IP address whenever possible, and investigate others’ IP addresses when you’re iffy about a message. 

We also want to mention that an email is not the only way to find someone’s IP address. You may be curious about the location of a website or a chat, in which case you can use these other methods to trace an IP address.

What if you want to hide your IP address completely?

That’s where we come in. Using our VPN is an excellent resource for various reasons, but especially for hiding your IP address. It works by rerouting your internet traffic through one of 2200+ servers in 75+ countries. This disassociates your originating IP address with practically everything you do online, including email. As all of your network data is also sent to this server before reaching its destination, it is encrypted. This helps protect you from your ISP or any third parties attempting to collect data on you for advertising/criminal purposes. With a VPN, you can feel confident that everything is being done to keep your IP address safe from harm.