Hide or remove e-mail message headers

When I first arrived at Microsoft (back in the last millennium), I received e-mail messages addressed to a large number of recipients. Often, I was one out of 20 to 150 recipients. The list of e-mail addresses in the To field was sometimes longer than the message itself.

At times, those messages contained information that I needed to print, and the huge list of names in the To field often consumed an additional sheet of paper. Typically, I'd find the first few lines of the message at the bottom of the first printed page and the rest of the message on the second page. I didn't like having to wade through a page of visual clutter to find the information I needed. And the waste of paper and toner annoyed me, even though we recycle virtually everything around here (including plastic cups and plates). One sheet of paper doesn't seem like much, until you think about the huge number of computers and printers out there.

Thankfully, you don't have to view or print long e-mail headers anymore. Microsoft Outlook® provides several ways to hide or to remove previous information from the From, To, Cc, and Bcc fields when you view and print messages.

A primer on headers

First, let's make sure we're all on the same page. E-mail messages contain two types of headers:

• A list of the servers and Internet Protocol (IP) addresses from which a message originated and through which it traveled to reach you. Typically, the people who manage e-mail servers use that information to eliminate junk senders and to troubleshoot errors.

Note If you want to view these types of headers, first open the desired e-mail message (don't just select the message in your inbox, open it), and on the View menu, click Options. The Message Options dialog box appears. The Internet Headers field at the bottom of the dialog box displays all the IP addresses and other information. You can right-click and then cut, copy, and clear the information in that field as desired. For more information, see the topic View e-mail headers.

• A common set of message fields or message headers: To, From, Cc, Bcc, and Subject.

The steps in the following sections explain how to hide the second type of headers.