Get Email Headers to troubleshoot Email failures - Online Help | Zoho Desk

Getting Email Headers to Troubleshoot Email Failures

Email headers are often required when troubleshooting email communication issues in the help desk system. Depending on the nature of the issue, support representatives may request headers from outgoing and/or incoming emails to investigate delivery failures, delayed messages, or cases where recipients do not receive expected communications.

An email header is a set of metadata that accompanies every email. It contains details such as the sender's and recipient's email addresses, subject line, sending and receiving timestamps, mail server information, authentication results, email relay data and delivery status. Email headers help trace the path an email has taken and identify the failure during transmission.
Sharing the email headers with the support team allows for faster diagnosis and resolution of these issues.

Email headers serve multiple purposes in troubleshooting email-related issues:
  1. Outgoing email failures: When emails triggered from the Zoho Desk are not received by customers.
    For emails sent using Custom SMTP/Modern Authentication, we will not be able to capture email delivery logs because the emails are dispatched directly through the configured SMTP server. However, we will be able to capture and display the email metadata (such as sender, recipient, subject, and timestamp) for reference and tracking purposes.
  2. Incoming email failures: When emails sent by customers do not create tickets in the Zoho Desk.
  3. Delivery delays: When emails take longer than expected to reach the recipient.
  4. Bounce issues: When emails are rejected or bounced by the recipient's mail server.
  5. Spam classification: When legitimate emails are marked as spam by the recipient's email provider.
  6. Authentication failures: When emails fail SPF, DKIM, or DMARC authentication checks.
To report email failure in Zoho Desk
  1. Navigate to Notifications > Email Failure.
  2. Select the failure entry to be reported.
  3. Click Report email failure.

To get email headers from Zoho Desk
  1. Locate the email that failed to reach the customer.
  2. Open the email details.
  3. Click Show Original.
  4. Click Download Header to save the email header file.
  5. Share the downloaded header file with the support representative.


To get email headers from Zoho mail  
  1. Login to your Zoho Mail account.
  2. Open the email whose headers you would like to view.
  3. Click the More Actions drop-down on the right corner of the email.
  4. Select the Show Original option.
    Show Original
  5. Click Download Full Content to download the header as a .txt file.
  6. Click Copy to clipboard to copy the header content.
    Message Header
  7. By default, only the Return Path and other information are displayed. To view the entire HTML source of the formatted email, click Show Full Content.
    Show Full Content
Notes
Note:
  1. Email headers can be obtained from various email providers such as Gmail, Yahoo, or outlook.
  2. For emails sent using custom SMTP/modern authentication, email delivery logs will not be captured since the emails are sent directly through the configured SMTP server. However, the email metadata (such as sender, recipient, subject, and timestamp) can be captured and displayed for reference and tracking purposes.