Extracting headers in Exchange/Outlook

[James Becker]

Is there a tool or method for extracting the Received headers from lots of messages (hundreds or thousands)? We've got Exchange Server 2003 and Outlook 2003. The manual method in Outlook (View/Options etc. on each message) gets old after just a few messages. Even if the easiest method is to raid just one recipient's In Box, that suits our purposes for now, because we can choose a suitable recipient that gets tons of e-mail.

In particular, I want to do some statistical analysis on the delays introduced by our MX hosts, as indicated by the Received headers. We've got a couple of MX hosts (one here, one belonging to our ISP) that funnel messages into Exchange Server 2003.

We've encountered a few messages in which the Received headers tell us that the message sat at an MX host for many hours or several days, even though our servers were on the air the whole time. Before we make any sweeping generalizations, we want to get some data.

Example: In one message, the Received header "by" our ISP's MX host "from" an outside host was time-stamped 30 Oct 2006 18:59:07 +0000. The Received header "by" our next MX host "from" the ISP's MX host was time-stamped 22 Nov 2006 01:41:47 -0500, almost 23 days later.

The delays themselves don't involve Exchange or Outlook, but I'm hoping there's a way I can get Exchange or Outlook to help me gather data on lots of messages so I can get a more accurate picture of what's going on.

[Rune J. Winje]

I think you have to move into a little bit of programming to do that.

See some info below:
http://help.lockergnome.com/office/headers-MailItem-ftopict818716.html
http://www.cdolive.com/cdo5.htm#EMailAddressOfSender
http://www.outlook-tips.net/getheaders.htm
http://www.dimastr.com/redemption/utils.htm
http://www.outlookcode.com/d/code/getsenderaddy.htm#redemption
http://www.dimastr.com/outspy/

Generally you also may have to have permission to the mailboxes to make a MAPI session or similar.

With regards to delays, I see sometimes that anti-spam services can delay a mail for a long time for no apparent reason - but then we are talking 24 hours or less...


Cheers,
Rune