Is there a way to tell the actual date of an email that was forwarded to you by someone else?

Question

I am asking someone to forward me an email they received from someone else. The purpose of having them forward me the email is that it will show whether or not the original sender responded by a specific date. However, when forwarding an email, it is very easy to change the header in the email that is being forwarded. These change also seem to update the Source as well. Is there another way to find the actual date the email was sent?

Answer 1

You can ask them to save the original item as .msg file and then attach it to a new email addressed to you. This will ensure that the original message headers are preserved, and you can verity the timestamps therein. Which it not to say that said details cannot be edited, too, but it's a bit more complicated.

Answer 2

Hi @MO ,

Agree with @Vasil Michev ,it is possible that someone could modify the headers of an email before forwarding it to you, which would make them unreliable. To prevent this, you can ask the person who forwarded you the email to send you the original email as an attachment instead of forwarding it. This way, the original headers will be preserved and you can view them by opening the attached email.

---

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.