jgcrews said:
If I want to forward an email message, with all headers in-tact and
readable (as plaint text), using Outlook 2003, is there a way to
accomplish this? If so, I must be overlooking something. Thanks in
advance.
What if you forward as *attachment* (i.e., "attach original message")?
However, that won't give you exactly what you asked for. It doesn't
look like you get to modify the format of the forwarded message. You
are, after all, forwarding what THEY sent, not how you modified it
(which you can send separately but then you are not forwarding THEIR
message). Also, not all the headers are retained. In a test case where
the message from an AOL sender, in this case, that was received by me
had the following headers (with sensitive info replaced with descriptive
braced placeholders):
X-Apparently-To: {myEmail} via {myIP}; Thu, 23 Sep 2004 08:12:01 -0700
X-Originating-IP: [{senderIP}]
Return-Path: <{senderIP}>
Received: from 205.188.157.35 (EHLO imo-d03.mx.aol.com)
(205.188.157.35)
by mta340.mail.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; Thu, 23 Sep 2004
08:12:01 -0700
Received: from {senderEmail}
by imo-d03.mx.aol.com (mail_out_gc_dev1.2.) id r.b7.4663b5f6 (15901)
for <{myEmail}>; Thu, 23 Sep 2004 11:11:48 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from aol.com (mow-d25.webmail.aol.com [205.188.139.166]) by
air-id09.mx.aol.com (v101_r1.4) with ESMTP id
MAILINID94-3e1d4152e7b41e1; Thu, 23 Sep 2004 11:11:48 -0400
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 11:11:48 -0400
From: {senderEmail}
To: {myEmail} ("{myName}")
Subject: {string}
MIME-Version: 1.0
Message-ID: <{senderMsgID}>
X-Mailer: Atlas Mailer 2.0
X-AOL-IP: {senderIP}
X-AOL-Language: english
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Content-Length: 203
I then forwarded this message as an attachment, received the forwarded
message, and opened the attached original message to looked at its
headers, which were:
From: <{senderEmail}>
To: "\"{myName}\"" <{myEmail}>
Subject: {string}
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 10:11:48 -0500
Message-ID: <{senderMsgID}>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0021_01C4A553.9C044290"
X-Mailer: Atlas Mailer 2.0
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2180
X-Originating-IP: [{senderIP}]
X-Apparently-To: {myEmail} via {myIP}; Thu, 23 Sep 2004 08:12:01 -0700
X-AOL-IP: {senderIP}
X-AOL-Language: english
The To header got mangled (use of slashes and reversal of e-mail and
comment fields). The Date header got mangled (by biasing it to *my*
timezone instead of retaining the Date header from the *sender*). The
order of the headers got changed. The X-MimeOLE header wasn't even in
the original message (that is *my* e-mail client's info). The
Content-Type was changed. The Return-Path and all the Received headers
(which track back to the sender) are missing.
So Outlook mangles the headers when forwarding the original message as
an attachment (and none of the original message's headers will be there
when your forward the message inline with the body of your message).
That is probably because Outlook *never* retains the raw or real format
of the original message. Instead it mangles it to convert into
Microsoft's proprietary format for their PST file. You can never give
to the recipient of the forwarded message *EXACTLY* what was put into
your mailbox, but then Outlook doesn't keep in its message store
*EXACTLY* was was put into your mailbox, either. Outlook Express does
retain the raw format of the original message. Unfortunately there are
too many features in Outlook along with far more potent rules than are
in Outlook Express (or Thunderbird) so I'm stuck with using Outlook.
Outlook either will not include the original headers at all (when you
inline the original message) or it mangles the crap out of them (when
you attach the original message). This test used Outlook 2002. I don't
know if Outlook 2003 made any improvements but I doubt it since
Microsoft is still using their proprietary PST format. But the
proprietary PST format doesn't explain everything, like changing the
timezone in the Date header, changing order and structure of the To
header, changing Content-Type, adding a header (X-MimeOLE) that wasn't
even in the original, and deleting the Return-Path and Received headers
(which are critical to tracking the sender). So Outlook sucks at
forwarding messages *if* you want an exact copy of the original message
be delivered to the recipient.
