12

iOS: 12.2

In the iOS Mail app, if the sender or recipient of an email has more than one email address associated with it, how can I tell which specific email address was used? For example, if I send myself an email from my personal account to my work account, since they're both associated to the same contact, I can't figure out how to tell who the recipient actually was. I have both Short Names and Prefer Nicknames turned off in the Contacts preference.

Improve this question
3
  • Can you tap on the name in the email to show the address?
    – fsb
    Commented Apr 24, 2019 at 18:35
  • 4
    No, it just brings up the Contact showing multiple email addresses
    – Joe Casadonte
    Commented Apr 27, 2019 at 9:25
  • All of the solutions here are needlessly complicated workarounds for something that should be standard. Please post requests to apple.com/feedback requesting it.
    – R B
    Commented Sep 12 at 8:27

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
10
+50
  1. If you see the word 'Details' at the top of the message (near the right side), tap it.
  2. Click on the persons name to open the contact card
  3. Scroll to their emails
  4. Look for the email with a "recent" tag above it.*

*In older iOS versions the correct email/phone number had a different color but in new versions it has a "recent" tag above the correct email/phone number.

See below:

enter image description here

Improve this answer
3
  • 3
    A caveat here is that you'll need to be in the 'Details' view for this to work. If you see the word 'Details' at the top of the message (near the right side), tap it. This will allow you to tap the sender name to view more information (tapping the sender name wont work if not in that view). If you see the word 'Hide' at the top, you are already in the details view.
    – Tim Campbell
    Commented Apr 27, 2019 at 17:17
  • 7
    @Apple - give us the choice to show email addresses in-line please. It does not feel trustworthy to be looking at a contact card and believe that "recent" actually genuinely relates to a specific, single email - from where I accessed the contact card - when it could relate to any of hundreds of emails.
    – youcantryreachingme
    Commented Jun 17, 2021 at 0:34
  • 3
    This answer doesn't seem to be correct on iOS 15.3.1 (the current version). I do not see a details page, nor anything about "recent". I didn't like this answer anyway, because what if I'm trying to find the address of an old message's sender?
    – Nathan Lilienthal
    Commented Feb 18, 2022 at 18:37
7

An easy way I found to see the original email address is to reply to the message and scroll down in the new message until you see the original quoted message. It should start with something like:

On Mar 30, 2019, at 11:38 PM, John Doe <[email protected]> wrote:

The email address is between the < and > characters. If you don't really want to reply, just touch "Cancel" to dismiss the new email.

As pointed out below by youcantryreachingme, this only works for the sender. If you have multiple email addresses associated with the same email account, it will not reveal the address that the email came in on.

I found an alternative approach though that does appear to show everything:

  1. View the message
  2. Touch reply button
  3. In the action sheet scroll down to Print
  4. In the Printer Options screen use the two-finger zoom gesture on the image of the email
  5. In the new preview view, you should see all of the email addresses taken from the original email

enter image description here

Improve this answer
3
  • 1
    That only works to find the sender's email address. It does not show the recipient email address.
    – youcantryreachingme
    Commented Jun 17, 2021 at 0:32
  • You got me started in the right direction. I've posted an updated answer for the current (sad) state of iOS.
    – Nathan Lilienthal
    Commented Feb 18, 2022 at 18:49
  • The print is a great trick! This should be the right answer as the “recent” tag is very unreliable and doesn’t show up half the time.
    – Mamouneyya
    Commented Oct 20 at 14:20
2

OK, for a more complete solution (including other recipients) tested on iOS 15.3.1:

  1. Reply All
  2. Tap the "To:" or "Cc:" fields' names until (3 times, once to focus the message header area, again to highlight the name, and finally once more to show the complete email address) the email is displayed below the row
  3. Delete draft

Editorial: Apple really needs to fix this. For all the harping on security they do, they don't even allow me to easily verify the addresses of my emails!? Sending a personal email to a work address could be easily considered "insecure".

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .