There are times, however, that emails come from people, businesses, etc. that we do not know. Most of these are junk mail that we simply delete. Some however, demand by their very nature and essence that we determine where they came from. An email sender can be located through a reverse email search but most people don't know anything about it.

The first step would be to do a Google search to find out where to start and exactly what to do. Your search will turn up lots of websites that will help you find an email address and tell you exactly how to do your search.

That, however, won't necessarily work all of the time. That's because some of these email senders won't register their email address in any directory so that they can send their “mail” in stealth mode. They are counting on the anonymity of the Internet and not registering their email address is one way to hide but they can be found.

Another measure to take in locating an e-mail address is to learn the IP address from which the sender is operating. The IP address is like your home address, except it for your computer. It will identify through a unique series of numbers, the card on a computer that in turn identifies the IP address.

Although you've come this far, it still may not be enough to absolutely identify the sender. That's because even though you have an IP address and the card number of the computer you will probably not have the name of the culprit. Ultimately, the user's name that is associated with an IP address are withheld as confidential information.

If you weren't successful with your attempt to locate the offender through this means, the next step would be to locate and use a reverse email search engine. This tool is available to the public as well as private investigative companies but they are not easy to find. Even if you do, it is likely that you may not be successful in your search.

That's because another trick offensive email senders use to throw off a search is using proxy servers to route their email to the receiver. Proxy servers hide the original IP address so that it can't be traced by just a regular search. Subsequently, they can be anywhere on the planet but not where they seem to be.

Most people give up by this time; it's just not worth the effort to them. Some, however, need to continue their pursuit due to the nature of the emails they have received. Securing the services of a professional investigator then would be an excellent decision.

Professional investigators have and utilize a number of tools including reverse email search engines, law enforcement databases, and dedicated software to trace email back to the original sender. If you need to know who is sending you offensive email and feel you can't do it yourself, it will be well worth the cost to hire a professional, which it turns out, may not be as expensive as you might think.