On top of that, stats say that around two hundred emails in an average professional’s inbox remain unopened.
It is clear that most people delete promotional emails without opening them. Besides, we sometimes receive emails from strangers. Once again, obvious spam ends up in trash. But what about messages that sound good, like a job offer or an email offering mutually beneficial collaboration? Can you find more info on their senders to see if this email comes from a real person who means what they’re saying? Fortunately, you can — and there are three ways to go about it. Let’s see how to trace an unknown email address.
Option #1: Tracing an email IP address
Today, most people use Gmail clients. Indeed, this Internet giant offers more security than any other mail server. Despite all the info Google collects about us and our daily habits, they do not make this data easily available for the third parties.
Take an email IP address, for instance. Gmail keeps it well hidden from the prying eyes, making it rather difficult to determine the sender’s location. But, you can always check this info by opening your Google mail in a Chrome browser.
To trace sender location in gmail, open the message and look for three dots at its top-right corner. From there, navigate to ‘Show Original’ option and click on it. Google will open a detailed info table, and you will see the sender’s location under the SPF line.
After that, anyone can copy an IP address and look it up with multiple IP tracking tools. Most of them are free of charge and are easily available after a basic Google search. Simple as it may sound, there is a ‘but’ — not all IP addresses reflect the sender’s actual location. Yes, if you got an email from an IP address that has been repeatedly reported spam, you will know. But, if you get an email from a real person, the IP address and email sender location will not offer you any truly valuable information about this man or woman. After all, it’s not just about verifying email validity; looking up an email sender is about getting to know who this person really is — at least, getting some basic insight. And this leads us to option #2.
Option #2: Scan social media sites
This method is not 100% sure, but if email senders use their valid personal emails, there is a high chance this same address is registered with several social networks. Depending on email contents, you can easily figure out which network is the most logical start. If you get a job offer, the best place to search is LinkedIn. Or, you could try Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and pretty much any other social media platform you’re registered with.
Once again, this sounds simple in theory, but you may not get any comprehensive results in practice. Social media platforms will often return you the list of suggestions that somehow match the email you’re looking up. Besides, a lot of professionals use separate work emails for business correspondence. Social media accounts, on the other hand, are usually registered with one’s personal address. So, it’s not that easy to trace email sender over social networks.
Option #3: Use a reverse email lookup tool
Next, you can benefit from the latest tech and use a reverse email lookup tool. Plenty of software — both free and paid — can trace an email sender. As a rule, paid software ensures a higher accuracy rate than free tools that run on ads and donations. Besides, most free contact databases deal with publicly available information. This means they look up the same info you could manually find on social media and Google.
Speaking of Google, you could try your luck there, too. Still, unless you got an email from a huge corporation (and we mean, Apple or Microsoft huge), you will generally see a list of responses that have little to do with your original search. With most common names and email addresses, you will usually get results that are somehow similar to your search — just like you would on most social media platforms. So, while not entirely a waste of time, this method is not as effective as one would hope.
Professional contact databases with a reverse lookup option are a better solution. Usually, they can track an email with a 95% accuracy rate. These tools can usually find email sender by name, phone number or any other contact details you have. For example, SignalHire internal database has over 400 million verified contacts. Aside from supporting an internal database search by name, email, and even skillset, this software has a Chrome and Firefox plugin that easily integrates with social networks. So, if you find someone on LinkedIn, you can get their contact details in just one click of a button. So far, this is the most versatile functionality among similar products.
Of course, professional tools run on paid subscriptions — after all, a lot of effort was involved in the development. So, the next question is — how often do you check email senders’ identities? After all, paying for professional software only makes sense if you do this regularly. On the bright side, some tools, SignalHire included, offer several free searches. Those could be enough to satisfy your curiosity. So, you can register and make use of your first five trial searches. Who knows? You may get lucky.
What if you cannot trace email sender?
New email addresses are hard to track. So, you may not find any comprehensive info on an email sender. Is it reason enough to block this person? Usually not. After all, there is a good old-fashioned way to determine if a real, credible person sent this message. That method is using your head.
For starters, pay attention to the contents of your email. If it is well-crafted, addresses you by name, mentions why the sender is reaching out, this message is probably not spam or scam. Let’s face it; we’ve all received so many emails about deceased Nigerian princes that mentioned us in their will that it’s not that difficult to analyze suspicious patterns in an email.
When trying to figure out who sent an email and if this person should be trusted, always remember that email outreach is quite common today. You can get new job offers, invitations to professional events, and many other enticing opportunities from people you do not know personally. The software we mentioned earlier allows recruiters and marketers to get virtually anyone’s contact details online. So, do not get too surprised if a stranger addresses you by name, mentions common connections, and makes interesting offers. Quite often, it means that the sender is doing an excellent job and outreaches professionally.
If it looks like an email was written by an actual person and is meant for you exclusively, this usually means a quality email outreach campaign. So, if something in this email catches your attention, you can always respond and clarify any details you’d like to know. After all, replying to an email from a stranger is not dangerous. If the offer is that good, you have nothing to lose but everything to gain by simply clicking ‘reply.’ If you do get a comprehensive reply, you may establish new connections and build mutually beneficial partnerships.
Finding a person’s LinkedIn profile by email address is easier than you think.
Image source: pixabay.com
