How do you find out the time zone an email was received/sent?

February 14, 2023 2:51 PM

For example in Gmail, is the time zone hidden somewhere, until you hover over it? By hidden I mean for example, on Edge, you click on Windows icon bottom left corner of the screen (on desktop)  the scroller is invisible until you accidentally hover over the area)),   if you want to see whatever is not visible. Or is there something you have to click on to find out the time zone?
posted by amfgf to Computers & Internet (13 answers total)

Best answer: When you are looking at the mail there is a button that is just three dots on top of each other on the upper right. Click that and select "Show original".
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 2:56 PM on February 14, 2023

Best answer: (you'll have to dig into the header a bit. Received is right at the top)
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 2:59 PM on February 14, 2023

Best answer: Tell Me No Lies,
"Show original" > "Created at" shows me the time but no time zone. Is it the free Gmail or paid one that you are looking at?
posted by amfgf at 3:08 PM on February 14, 2023

Best answer: Reading SMTP headers is a bit of a challenge as any email can be processed by many MTA's (store and forward hosts) but I see several entries like this:

Tue, 14 Feb 2023 12:11:11 -0800 (PST)

some with just the universal offset (the -0800) so for some it would take identifying the area at -0800 and looking up what the zone and checking when daylight change occurs.

Also mail hosts may be misconfigured sometimes (they lie) due to server errors or intentionality :-)
posted by sammyo at 3:22 PM on February 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: "Show original" > "Created at" shows me the time but no time zone.

Yeah, the "Created at" field isn't useful for this. Look for dates in the header.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 4:07 PM on February 14, 2023

Best answer: Note that anyone can set (or not adjust) their time zone however they like in, I'm sure, most email programs (certainly in Gmail, I just looked at an email I sent myself that is off by four hours because I recently travelled). So this isn't really proof of anything.
posted by ssg at 7:05 PM on February 14, 2023

Best answer: The headers can say almost anything but the time of the server where it's received at should not be faked. The problem is I can choose a mail server that's nowhere near me, and this goes into how email really works, and that's one of the instances where you may not want to know "how the sausage is made", so to speak (and why no one has quite solved the spam problem).

Anyway, how email works: https://www.namecheap.com/guru-guides/how-does-email-work/

Following is some spam's header I've got recently


Received: from mail-sor-f41.google.com (mail-sor-f41.google.com. [209.85.220.41])
by mx.google.com with SMTPS id d189-20020a671dc6000000b003f8619300e4sor4575457vsd.108.2023.02.12.08.09.22
for
(Google Transport Security);
Sun, 12 Feb 2023 08:09:22 -0800 (PST)


Google's own headers, you can trust. And this guy actually used a Google account to spam, from what I can see. So PST as time zone appears to be valid. YMMV.
posted by kschang at 10:02 PM on February 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: The date/time in the Received headers for sending and receiving is likely in relation to the timezone that the user's mailserver is in, and may have little to no relationship to the sender's actual timezone, which it sounds like is what you want. The Date header can be set by the sender to be whatever they want, but it's more likely to correctly represent the timezone of the sender. Again, tho, it can be unreliable, so if it's important you should probably ask whoever sent you the email directly.
posted by Aleyn at 10:44 AM on February 15, 2023

Best answer: Thank you. I'm still not successful at finding the header, (whatever looks close enough to what sammyo posted
Tue, 14 Feb 2023 12:11:11 -0800 (PST)
and what kscang posted:
: "Received: from mail-sor-f41.google.com (mail-sor-f41.google.com. [209.85.220.41])
by mx.google.com with SMTPS id d189-20020a671dc6000000b003f8619300e4sor4575457vsd.108.2023.02.12.08.09.22
for
(Google Transport Security);
Sun, 12 Feb 2023 08:09:22 -0800 (PST)"
even if it is not reliable, ....
posted by amfgf at 1:43 PM on February 15, 2023

Best answer: In Gmail, the headers are visible after you select the "Show Original" option in the three dots menu in the upper right hand corner of the message.
posted by mmascolino at 2:03 PM on February 15, 2023

Best answer: By the way, by "even if it is not reliable" above, I'm quoting , Aleyn "Again, tho, it can be unreliable"
posted by amfgf at 2:10 PM on February 15, 2023

Best answer: Under Show Original, just search for the line that begins with "Date:" (not some other line that has Date in it, just the line that starts with "Date:" followed by a date and time). That's the date, time and time zone that the sender's mail program think it is.
posted by ssg at 3:35 PM on February 15, 2023

Response by poster: Ok, I see it now thank you all, so much.
posted by amfgf at 5:57 PM on February 15, 2023