{"id":1722,"date":"2021-05-20T10:29:56","date_gmt":"2021-05-20T07:29:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scalahosting.com\/kb\/?p=1722"},"modified":"2025-11-27T14:32:45","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T12:32:45","slug":"what-is-an-email-header-difference-between-full-partial-headers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scalahosting.com\/kb\/what-is-an-email-header-difference-between-full-partial-headers\/","title":{"rendered":"Email Headers Explained: Full vs Partial"},"content":{"rendered":"

People who have been using the internet for a while have probably heard of email headers and most likely <\/span>know that they’re often used when experts investigate email scams<\/b>. However, very few actually know what an email header is and <\/span>what sort of information it carries.<\/b> The goal of this article is to change this.<\/span><\/p>\n

What is an email header?<\/b><\/h2>\n

It may not be immediately apparent, but<\/span> email messages consist of HTML code<\/b>. The text and the links and images you interact with are locked between the <body> and <\/body> tags, but there’s more data that often remains invisible to the user.<\/span><\/p>\n

For example, the code before the opening <\/span><body> tag is the header,<\/b> and it contains a lot of information about who sent the message, when they did it, who the recipient is, and how it got to their inbox.<\/span><\/p>\n

Part of this information is displayed by virtually every client and browser-based email application. Whenever you receive an email, you can see who it’s from, what the subject is, and, often, when it was sent. This is the so-called <\/span>partial header<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The <\/span>full header<\/b> contains a lot more information that usually isn’t of much interest to the regular user. That’s why email clients tend not to show it by default.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, this data is vital for the correct deliverability of an email.<\/span><\/p>\n

What is an email header used for?<\/b><\/h2>\n

What the header looks like and how the information is organized depends on the email service provider. In addition to ensuring that the message gets delivered to the right place, the header can be helpful for:<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n