LocationMail - Homepage

Help with LocationMail

About the Data LocationMail Displays

The data that LocationMail for each message is based on an analysis of the headers of the message. The "headers" of a message include transit information about the message and also other fields that are not displayed in the message body, such as what e-mail program was used to send the message.

First, LocationMail grabs what it believes to be the original sender's IP address. An IP address is a unique numerical "address" for a computer on the internet. Once LocationMail has the IP address, it relays it back to the LocationMail data center, where a wealth of up-to-the-minute information is retrieved for that IP address, and sent back to your computer.

LocationMail uses data from DigitalEnvoy to make this possible. DigitalEnvoy provides advanced IP geolocation services, determining the city (with 94% accuracy), state, and country (99% accuracy) for a particular IP address.

We also use data from APNIC, RIPE, ARIN, and LACNIC to determine which entity (i.e. company, organization, or individual) legally "owns" an IP address; this allows us to show you what company/organization an e-mail was sent from. APNIC, RIPE, ARIN, and LACNIC are the four global nonprofit organizations trusted with allocating IP addresses throughout the globe. Each one services a different region of the planet.

The LocationMail Window

LocationMail shows a floating window that has details for each message you read (or even click on). This window can be hidden in Outlook. When you use Outlook, LocationMail (when on) will add a pane to all Outlook message windows, and will append location information to the bottom.

Description of Fields

Country - This is the country where the e-mail was sent from.

City - This is the city where the e-mail was sent from.

State - The state where the e-mail was sent from.

Company - This is the company that has been allocated the IP address that the e-mail was sent from.

ISP - This is the ISP providing the internet connection to the e-mail sender. In many cases, this will match the Company, but quite often it will represent the internet backbone provider. For example, Qwest might be the ISP for a big company through which the big company gets its internet access.

Domain - The domain name (if any) that corresponds to this IP address.

Connection Type - This is the speed of the connection. Options include: cable, dialup, broadband, t1, dsl, and more.

Probability - This is the probability that LocationMail has assigned to the accuracy of its measurement. It is either Low, Medium, or High, and depends on what information LocationMail finds in the headers for each message. It is NOT based on how accurate the geographical data is for an IP address; rather, it is based on how accurate LocationMail thinks it has the ACTUAL IP address for the sender's machine. For example, some corporate users have a central IT office that hosts their mail server, and thus an employee of a big company might send a message from Florida, USA, but it goes through the big company's server in, say, Ohio. In most cases, mail servers WILL include the so-called "originating IP" of the message, but not always.

Show Map - Shows a map from MaqQuest.com based on the Country/City/State information.