Can You Trace An Email If You Don't Have The Headers?

Copyright (c) 2011 Opperman Investigations Inc

Do you have an email address and need to locate or identify that person? If so you may be thinking that the only way to locate or identify someone from an email address is to examine the headers and trace the IP address back to the ISP (Internet Service Provider). Then you would have to get a subpoena or court order for the ISP to turn over account holder information. If this is what you're thinking you're wrong. It is possible too trace an email address right back to the sender even if you do not have the headers. In most cases you won't need a court order or search warrant, just an experienced private investigator that knows what he's doing.

There's a great deal of misinformation all over the Internet about this subject. If you Google "how To Trace an Email" you'll get hundreds of hits from well meaning people on how to examine a header, obtain the Internet Protocol Address (IP). But that's not the information you are looking for. What you want is a name address and phone number for the person using that email address.

The bottom line is that if you want to locate or identify someone hire an investigator. Private investigators have years of experience in tracking people down with very little identifying information. Long before email or the Internet was in popular use PIs have been locating bail jumpers and run away teenagers and tracing people down who use pay phones and fake Ids. This is not unfamiliar ground for private investigators.

Usually when a person wants to trace an email they will turn to their IT dept. Now the IT dept may be great at installing a network, removing a virus or upgrading Windows but stop and think. How many people have they ever tried to locate before embarking on their first email trace investigation? Zero!

The examination of the header and IP address is one step in an email trace investigation but it is only one step among many steps. So even if you do not have the headers the PI can usually trace the email successfully anyway. many times the PI can obtain the headers for you. But even without headers there are still many steps in an email trace investigation that will still result in obtaining the name and address and phone number behind an anonymous email account.