11 replies to this topic

[Tushman]

I support a wide variety of users at work using MS Office 2007/2010.  Several of them are using Outlook 2010 and I had a particular need to grab the header information from a few of his e-mails for troubleshooting purposes.  After fumbling around through some of the options, I decided to search the internet for a quick 'how-to'.  I found a site with a quick "how to" complete with nice screenshots to make it easier.  I must also say that I appreciate the authors style of writing and his philosophy.

How To View email Headers in Outlook 2010

Hey Microsoft: QUIT SCREWING AROUND WITH THE OFFICE INTERFACE!!!

Things like this are why Apple products and Open Office are gaining so much ground on you. I understand updating the Office interface to the ribbon style menus (I don’t like it but I understand it). You should have done it all in 2007, or just waited until 2010 to do any of it.

The Office ribbon does not bother me.  What does bother me is that they [Microsoft] has this asinine tendency to bury such settings/options in some obscure menu that is not very intuitive.  It is just as annoying to have to "re-learn" how to locate this information is located with almost every new version of Office.  For comparison, see this article on how to grab the header information in Outlook 2007.  It seems to make much more sense in the 2007 version - I have no idea what rationale MS was using when making this change in the 2010 version.  It is just ghetto.

Edited by Tushman, 25 February 2012 - 09:23 PM.

[LilBambi]

Yes, it is annoying to be sure. And why hide that one in layers! We often need to see headers and/or source code too.

They sure make it hard to be careful.

[Temmu]

1. ribbon - that was my original opinion too.

2. headers - one (or ones co-workers) should remember that spoofing headers is not that difficult.

[crp]

viewing headers in msOutlook was always hidden in non-intuitive menu options.
There is a even version out there that require the message to be open before you can view the headers.

[LilBambi]

Yes, you are right crp! It's hard to believe in this day and age that Outlook could be so advanced in some ways and so much in the dark ages in others - particularly in the security arena.

[Tushman]

There is a even version out there that require the message to be open before you can view the headers.

It's not just one version - it applies to virtually every version of Outlook.

By the way, I don't know how one would expect to gain detailed information about an e-mail without the e-mail itself being open.  Seems to me from an end-user perspective that would be the most 'intuitive' way.

[crp]

It's not just one version - it applies to virtually every version of Outlook.

By the way, I don't know how one would expect to gain detailed information about an e-mail without the e-mail itself being open.  Seems to me from an end-user perspective that would be the most 'intuitive' way.

Eudora did the same thing with its 'blah-blah-blah' button as I recall.
No , you shouldn't have to open the email to see the email. Right-clicking (or whatever) the message while in preview should give you option to view full header.

[LilBambi]

Or, like in the much more intuitive Thunderbird email client, choose normal headers or all headers for all emails. I view normal, and can also easily change from normal to all from the view menu.

In addition, just highlighting the email (and I don't use preview pane), I can, press CTRL U and view the entire source for the email without opening the email and chancing any dangers.

I also can change how I view emails easily from my normal mode of viewing an email Plain Text to either Original HTML or Simple HTML if I trust an email that much (unlikely).

And I can also choose whether to view attachments inline or not. I default to not viewing inline.

Thunderbird can also be set to not load remote images by default on emails and prompt you at the top of the email whether you wish to view the remote images. If you view as HTML, which I don't generally.

Many of the things that I liked about Outlook Express, the granular control on how I wanted to view emails is not carried over to Outlook, at least not in a real world easy manner. Much was lost in the change to Windows Live Mail as well.

Sigh...

Eudora hasn't been updated in many years, but they are working on a new free/open source which is currently an extension for Mozilla Thunderbird called Penelope to give it Eudora like qualities.

There are others though, like The Bat (pay to play/shareware), Pegasus Mail (donationware, uses RTF like Apple Mail if I remember correctly by default, but unlike Apple Mail, you can change that to plain text if you wish), etc.

Lots of email clients out there but few have Outlook's calendaring. However, Thunderbird's Lightning Extension does a great job at it these days.

[Tushman]

Eudora did the same thing with its 'blah-blah-blah' button as I recall.

The application that I mentioned in my post was for Outlook.  So when you said "there is a version out there...."  - you implicitly referred to Outlook, not Eudora.  You should have said "there is an application out there...."

No , you shouldn't have to open the email to see the email. Right-clicking (or whatever) the message while in preview should give you option to view full header.

A part of me agrees with that.  Definitely makes sense for IT folk.  Not so much for end users who do not need to know that kind of information or have their context menu cluttered up with a menu option that does not help in their everyday tasks.

[LilBambi]

Play nice, children

Actually all users, not just IT users should NOT be looking through a preview pane, there are times when things can run in a preview pane.

If you don't know what the email is about and it appears somewhat suspicious, whether you know the person or not, you should be able to look at the complete headers, and the message source to determine whether this is an email you wish to open.

crp is right though...you don't need to open an email to see what's in it if the email client is worth it's salt. IMHO.

[crp]

The application that I mentioned in my post was for Outlook.  So when you said "there is a version out there...."  - you implicitly referred to Outlook, not Eudora.  You should have said "there is an application out there...."

huh? what did you not understand?

[Temmu]

duck!(1)  grammar police!

this is a forum, not a novel(2)... shirley(3) we can understand other folks well intentioned meanings...  


notes
1 - not waterfowl
2 - acception - cluttermagnet's, "further tales of the titi lounge" which is a novel.
3 - a good friend of mine. somehow her name ends up at the beginning of many sentences for emphasis.  why? who knows?