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How to Find the Owner of an Email Address

Finding out the name of the owner of an email address can be easy (but that is not all you can learn from just an email address) ...

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If some unknown person sends you an email, of course to want to know name of the person owns that return email address (even if the email is not spam or offensive). Knowing the email address of the sender can tell you whether or not you want to reply to the email. Some emails contain the name of the person who sent it, and even if it does not, some email programs will tell you the name the email account is registered under and include the information in the same line as the email address. If email address' owner is not visible, sometimes you can learn more by looking at the email address itself.

While an email address like iamdumb@emailprovider.com may not give you a name, the domain name (the word between the @ and the .com is the domain name) can give you a clue. Major email providers like g-mail and lycos will not tell you much, but the domain is something unusual like 'rockhounds.com' or 'businessname.com', you can perform a simple Google search for the domain name. You can actually "copy and paste" the domain name from the email into the browser (just copy everything after the @ symbol from the senders email address). This can narrow down the possibilities quite a bit. If someone you don't know is sending you email from a business email address, you can contact the company for more information. It could be that the person had a legitimate reason for contacting you but is unaware of proper email etiquette.

Spam email, on the other hand, can be nearly impossible to trace for the average person. Most people choose to simply delete these emails or mark them as spam so that they don't have to deal with them anymore. On the other hand, mysterious or harassing emails warrant more attention and can be quite a headache to track down.

It can be difficult if not impossible to find the owner of an email address if the person has used a false name to register the email account. If someone has chosen to use a bogus name and address to register for an email account with a major provider, you have little power to find the information as a private citizen. In these cases, where someone is harassing you and you need it to stop, it is advisable to enlist the help of a reputable company to find out who is doing the emailing.

There are a few companies on the internet that will allow you to do a reverse email search to find out who the account is registered to. These companies generally charge a small fee per search, or you can register for a membership and conduct as many reverse email searches as you like. However, if you are able to find out the true identity of a harassing emailer, it may not be a good idea to try to handle the problem yourself.

If you can find out who owns an email address through one of these services (natually we think ours is the best), you next step should be to report the person to the proper authorities. Be sure to save any harassing emails to use as evidence. Companies that conduct these searches can sometimes help you with the legal process required to put a legal stop to unwanted internet behavior.