How can I view message source in Windows Live Hotmail?

The latest upgrade in Windows Hotmail has gone ahead and removed the View Message Source from the right-click context menu in the Inbox! I have always found that to be a valuable and critical tool in filtering out /previewing potentially risky e-mails without ever having to actually open them.

Why on earth would MS disarm their Hotmail account users in this day and age in the battle against scams/spams/phishing and all other sorts of nefarious exploits!?!?

Dave's Answer:

I love your question because I love that you use the phrase "nefarious exploits". That by itself caused me to want to answer your query. :-)

More importantly, you're right, Microsoft's Live.com team have indeed moved some things around in the new - vastly improved - Hotmail user interface, and while it's mostly an improvement in my opinion, there are definitely some things that have shuffled around and found new homes, including the useful View Message Source capability.

Turns out it's still there in Hotmail - which is good, especially if you're checking to see if an email message is legit or bogus - but it's just not accessible from the folder summary view.

Here's an example: I sent myself a message from a different account to my Hotmail account and here's how it looked in the inbox:

Let's look at that second message. To do so, simply click on the subject shown, and it'll show the message itself:

At this point, notice the "Action" menu button on the top right. Click on it and there are a bunch of different options you can do here in Windows Live Hotmail:

There's what we want, almost at the bottom: View Message Source. Choose that one and *poof* you're seeing a lot of crufty message routing and status information data, along with other message headers:

So the answer to your question of how to see message source is: use the Action menu. Your question of why they keep moving this sort of thing around? Not so sure about that one, but I'd guess it's just to keep up with the Joneses (Yahoo Mail, Google's Gmail).

Categorized: Computer and Internet Basics , Windows PC Help (Article 9535, Written by Dave Taylor)
Tagged: email, gmail, google mail, msn hotmail, spam, windows live hotmail, yahoo mail
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Comments

Hi Dave,
Did all of the above but only a message.......

Internet Explorer cannot download getmessage source.aspx from sn........mail.live.com.

Internet explorer was not able to open this Internet site.

The requested site is either unavailable or cannot be found.

please try again later.

Can you please shed some light on this problem.

Thanks Janet

Posted by: janet at August 7, 2010 9:04 PM

Yup I have been having the same problem - using ie8 I get the error message and in google chrome just get a load of symbols - this seems to be a problem for many people I think that the old hotmail was better - if it ain't broke ..... I cannot now source scams etc and report them.

Posted by: sara at August 10, 2010 6:21 AM

Sara commented "in google chrome just get a load of symbols"

The same is true of Firefox and Opera: to create a little list for this complaint.
The result of clicking on "view message source" is gibberish, of no use to man nor beast.

Incidentally, I see the word 'Reply' where you see the word 'Actions'

Any thoughts on this matter?

Paul

Posted by: Paul at August 13, 2010 4:05 PM

Thanks for the comment, Paul. I fear that there might be more than one version of Hotmail that you can have assigned to your account depending on what server you end up on (e.g. "randomly"). :-(

Posted by: Dave Taylor at August 13, 2010 5:54 PM

I am also unable to use this feature. In firefox, safari, I just see garbage and it gives an error in IE6-8. I have also contacted hotmail staff regarding this problem about a month ago, but the problem is still not solved.

Posted by: Imran at August 18, 2010 7:00 AM

In regards to viewing the message source, When I click on the subject OR the from, I get the word Reply
where the post says it should say Actions. Clicking on the ridiculously tiny arrow next to reply gives a drop down menu with message source as an option to click. So is it Actions and if so how do you get it to show this and not reply?

Posted by: ERIC HARTUNIAN at August 20, 2010 4:26 PM

I have the same issue with message source not being readable.
I use FF 3.6 and Opera 10.
And the hotmail server which always answers me is:
co116w.col116.mail.live.com

Posted by: MrLeV at August 21, 2010 6:11 PM

I cannot view message source in hotmail.live usint ie8.

The error is Internet Explorer cannot download GetMessagSource.aspx from bl113w.blue113.mail.live.com. Internet Exploreer was not able to open this Internet site. The requested site is eigher unavailable or connot be found. Please try again later.

Can you explain how to resolve this probem?

Thank you.

Posted by: Rover at August 22, 2010 2:31 PM

It is totally ridiculous how hard they've made it to see the ISP of the people who are spamming you! I finally found it, like Eric did, in the tiny speck next to the 'reply' option in the header. Grr...I wish they'd stop 'upgrading.'

Posted by: Jennifer at August 27, 2010 10:28 PM

hi dave,i still cant see message source, because they show me something like this >>>>> ‹��íZéo£ºÿWFºŸfrõ$²tš¹MÓIÒõKeÀ$nÙHÓô¯Æ†à¥ítf4O÷5 æøø¬¿slúw’¢ÿÜˆ#”epŽÄ> ðJ×}ÒŽpõ ?Ÿ=LïfÔõóìbf›·3ùy,kfùì›¼jì¿>J§¼(jq‘;5ÇióeÆøEôKæÉ¦Ã¾x1±ÙóŠ“ÚYæ¾hÑ_]zÕáôb8†wÁ_Ÿ4µƒ/²9¿ª¡²_
Please tell me how to see it, thanks

Posted by: adi at August 28, 2010 12:27 AM

please help.
i have the same problem as above.
will changing the OS work.
i use vista an IE8.

cheers.

Posted by: stephen at August 30, 2010 12:04 PM

What a pain, still gibberish, gibberish and more gibberish with "view message source" .. Will this ever be fixed ? I frequently send reports to anti-phishing databases, but haven't been able to because the data shown is pretty much as useful as a chocolate tea-pot .. As a system admin, I need to see message sources for my network's security, so that's been messed up for me too .. Great work MS, no wonder your guys have a great rep everywhere for your amazing and brilliant programming skills .. !!!

Posted by: MailHotSux at September 2, 2010 4:07 PM

September 5 and these random characters are still an issue. Please stop 'improving' things, Microsoft.

Posted by: Ian at September 5, 2010 6:00 AM

I agree with you all, same problem here , and it has nothing to do with the browser being used.
I have several accounts on msn, and the last few months i have noticed that gradually, this functionality stopped working on all accounts one by one.

Cheers

Posted by: Patrick at September 8, 2010 7:00 AM

September 17th and still borked.
You can right-click on the message to get the context menu but clicking on 'View message source' still crashes IE and shows symbols in real browsers.

Posted by: Steve at September 17, 2010 5:33 AM

The problem with giberish appearing goes away if you disable GZIP compression in firefox, details how to turn gzip off at

http://forgetmenotes.blogspot.com/2009/05/how-to-disable-gzip-compression-in.html

This breaks other pages however and should probably be changed back once finished viewing the message source. I'm not sure of the solution with IE but it should be similar.

Posted by: DaveB at September 28, 2010 4:28 AM

I had viewed header info many times in the past, this time I though I was just losing it...What frustration with hotmail.

Posted by: Jeff at October 6, 2010 6:41 PM

Hi all. Like most other guys here I also keep having the -
'Internet Explorer cannot download getmessage source.aspx from sn........mail.live.com.
Internet explorer was not able to open this Internet site. The requested site is either unavailable or cannot be found. Please try again later'.
Having looked at several other forums on the web I am of the conclussion that nobody knows how to get the 'View message source' in Hotmail to work. I tried the option in my other web based email account #Gmail# and it works fine, so what IS the problem with Hotmail?

Posted by: Dave at November 3, 2010 1:47 PM

I have something to say, now that you mention it, but ...

I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you for all your efforts on this Web site by buying you a cup of coffee!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!