What is an e-mail 'header'?

What is an e-mail 'header'?

Tim Burress (E-mail Etiquette and Organization Specialist) gives expert video advice on: What is a 'hyperlink'? and more...

An e-mail header is the basically where the message came from. Most companies use 'From so and so', the date sent and perhaps the time and the subject. You could also have other things in the message header, such as the IP address, the location, and a lot of other details of when, how, and where that message was created. Most companies turn that off because it occupies a lot of the e-mail space that you see and limits the amount of space that you can then type in. So most usually an e-mail header contains just who it's from and the date and time. That's the message header for most companies.