Can You Still Trace An Email If The Account Is Closed?

Do you need to trace an email address to locate or identify the sender? You can still accomplish this even if the email account is now closed and no longer active. It may be a bit more difficult but it is still possible to identify the person behind that email address. In this article we will attempt to deal with the additional problems an investigator faces when he is trying to investigate an old or state email address that has been deactivated.

First this we need to do is find out if the email address we are attempting to investigate is still active or has been closed. If the email address we are investigating was opened for the sole purpose of contacting our client and then closed immediately after sending an email then it's going to be difficult to trace. But if the account has been used for years but only recently deleted after sending the offending communication it may be a very simple investigation. In fact the email address may be found in an instant data base service.

In order to determine if the email is active you need to test it out using one of the many online services that will tell you if the email is active. You can also email the account from a fake email account and see if it bounces. Of course there are many more technical methods you can use but in this article we are dealing with the basics.
If we have determined the email is inactive this cuts our investigation techniques in half. Because we can only analyze incoming data from the email. In an ideal investigation we will be investigating the senders computer by analyzing information we can capture when they open a pretext email we sent to them.

So we will have to analyze the incoming headers and extract the IP address, use geo tracking, IP Address locating and good old Whois to identify the ISP of the sender. We can also investigate the IP address to see if it is associated with any other online activity. But besides the IP information we may be able to tell the senders email program such as outlook express.
We can submit the email to a data base search to see if it has been used online in the past. We can search the deep web, member ship sites, online billing and payment services to se if the email address had ever been used in a financial transaction. Social networks also have an email search feature to find or add friends.

There are also pay searches such as Online Infidelity Investigations and Online Gambling Investigation searches that can trace an email to an online Gaming site or a secret online personal ad on a dating site. This kind of email investigation can actually return a picture of the person behind the email address.

So as you can see that it is possible to trace an email and locate or identify the sender even if the email address has been deactivated or deleted.

Copyright (c) 2011 Opperman Investigations Inc
Ed Opperman invites you to visit his cyber investigation website for all of your email search needs. He offers cyber stalking investigations, internet infidelity investigations, reverse email search and much more. To learn more about reverse email lookup and other useful information please click here now:===> http://www.emailrevealer.com

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Can You Trace An Email If You Don't Have The Headers?

Do you have an email address and need to locate or identify that person? If so you may be thinking that the only way to locate or identify someone from an email address is to examine the headers and trace the IP address back to the ISP (Internet Service Provider). Then you would have to get a subpoena or court order for the ISP to turn over account holder information. If this is what you're thinking you're wrong. It is possible too trace an email address right back to the sender even if you do not have the headers. In most cases you won't need a court order or search warrant, just an experienced private investigator that knows what he's doing.

There's a great deal of misinformation all over the Internet about this subject. If you Google "how To Trace an Email" you'll get hundreds of hits from well meaning people on how to examine a header, obtain the Internet Protocol Address (IP). But that's not the information you are looking for. What you want is a name address and phone number for the person using that email address.
While examining the headers for identifying information is an important step it s not by any means the most important step.

The bottom line is that if you want to locate or identify someone hire an investigator. Private investigators have years of experience in tracking people down with very little identifying information. Long before email or the Internet was in popular use PIs have been locating bail jumpers and run away teenagers and tracing people down who use pay phones and fake Ids. This is not unfamiliar ground for private investigators.

Usually when a person wants to trace an email they will turn to their IT dept. Now the IT dept may be great at installing a network, removing a virus or upgrading Windows but stop and think. How many people have they ever tried to locate before embarking on their first email trace investigation? Zero!
The examination of the header and IP address is one step in an email trace investigation but it is only one step among many steps. So even if you do not have the headers the PI can usually trace the email successfully anyway. many times the PI can obtain the headers for you. But even without headers there are still many steps in an email trace investigation that will still result in obtaining the name and address and phone number behind an anonymous email account.

In fact in most cases an investigator can obtain the information behind an email not by examining the incoming header but by sending an emaail to the stalker and obtaining information when that person opens an email.

Far more information is obtained that way than is obtained by examining incoming headers.
Copyright (c) 2011 Opperman Investigations Inc

Ed Opperman is president of Opperman investigations. If you need a reverse email search to locate a con man, bail jumper, runaway or parental kidnapper please visit www.emailrevealer.com.

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