Receiving and sending emails is part of our daily life, but have you been bothered by a continuous stream of spam and irrelevant ads? Sometimes, blocking one email address is not enough, we need to block the sender once can forever. So here comes the question, is it possible to track the IP address of an email?

Gmail IP Address Tracker

Don’t worry, this post is here to help. We’ll show you how to search email addresses and locate the sender’s location.

Method 1: Use the Email header to trace the IP address

You can track the IP address from the email header to trace the email owner easily. The IP address of the server that the email was sent from will be recorded in the message headers. Here’s how to check the email header:

1. Open your mail account (Yahoo, Outlook, Apple).
2. Open the email you want to track.
3. For Yahoo Mail, open the message pane and click on the More icon.
   For Outlook, go to File > Properties. Check the Internet Header section to find the IP address.
   For Apple Mail, click View > Message > Raw Source and check the email header.

However, not every email server allows you to check the email header. A user who felt may be fooled by someone tended to find the IP address of an email. The user tried this method and found the mail doesn’t have a header.¹

Gmail is another exception: Gmail DOES NOT show you the real IP address of the sender.

It’s because email IP addresses can be considered sensitive information, so Gmail would not display the sender’s email IP address and none of the headers contain the address. Google will use its server to process the email, so you can’t see the exact IP address of the email sender, you can only see the IP address that belongs to the Google servers. This has been proved by users from online forums. Another user who tended to figure out the person who pretended to be him and sent emails to his father, but only found the Google server’s IP.²

If you want to check it by yourself, you can follow the steps to check the email header in Gmail.

1) Open Gmail.

2) Open the sender’s message in Gmail.

3) Click the three dots button on the right, then click Show original.

4) In the pop-up tab, See SPF (sender policy framework), you’ll see the sender’s IP address.

5) Use a free IP lookup tool (e.g. https://who.is/) to fetch the location of the sender.
The IP address points to a Google server.

In fact, even if you have the IP address of the email sender, you may not achieve your goal. One user wants to help friends figure out the culprit of harassing emails, but the IP address they found was private.³ They can’t use IP addresses to determine who was harassing them. Therefore, a reverse email search tool may help.

Method 2: Use reverse email search tools

There are reverse email search services online and this is an easy and reliable way to search for the sender when you receive an unknown or suspicious email address.

BeenVerified

BeenVerified is one of the most popular email search tools among users. It helps you dig deep into information related to an email address. You could learn the sender’s real full name and contact information like phone numbers, social media profiles ( Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.)

1) Go to BeenVerified.

2) Select Email Lookup, then enter the email address in the search box and click SEARCH.

3) You’ll acquire a detailed report that contains the information you need.

Social Catfish

Social Catfish is one of the most powerful and easy-to-use people search tools you can find on the market. By entering the email address, you’ll find the information including real name, social media profiles, contact information, and more.

1) Go to the Social Catfish official page.

2) Click EMAIL and enter the email address. Then hit SEARCH NOW.

3) You’ll get a comprehensive report that contains information associated with the email address.

Spokeo

Spokeo is a well-known people search engine, one of its prominent features is the Spokeo Reverse Email Search tool, which allows users to search for information about someone by inputting their email address. You can uncover details such as the person’s name, age, location, social media profiles, photos, and public records.

1) Go to Spokeo’s official page.

2) Select the EMAIL tab and enter an email address, then search.

3) Spokeo generates reports for you. Choose a report and find the information you need.

Method 3: Search on social media

Social media has collected so much personal information that not many people realized yet. Therefore, you can use the email address to search on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. You can search the mail ID on Facebook from your account to know more details about them. In case, if he has the same email ID, then it’s a bingo! You can get the location and other info of that person by viewing his profile.

If the concerned person uses the same email ID, then once you search, it will show you their profile in front of you. If not, there is a website called ‘KnowEm’, where you can search their profile.

That’s the most common way to trace the email sender’s location, hope this post will help. If you have any suggestions, questions, or ideas, you’re welcome to leave a comment below.

1. PC & Mac Hardware and Software [hansue]. (2017, June 18). How do you find an IP address from an email [Online forum post]. Forums. https://forums.digitalspy.com/discussion/2285985/how-do-you-find-an-ip-address-from-an-email ↩︎
2. r/hacking [s0methingliving]. (2018, September 26). How to get an IP from an email? [Online forum post]. Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/hacking/comments/9j36er/how_to_get_an_ip_from_an_email/ ↩︎
3. Software and Web Development [Ghost02]. (2012, November 5). Tracking an IP address / origin of emails [Online forum post]. MyBroadband. https://mybroadband.co.za/forum/threads/tracking-an-ip-address-origin-of-emails.480196/ ↩︎