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Email is used to communicate through the Internet, and though it is the preferred choice of communication for many today, it has its pitfalls. One would be that if an email is lost, you may never know it. Another is spam, and though that is annoying, it is often not threatening. However, there may come a time when an email does come into your inbox that threatens you in some way. When that happens, you have to know what to do about it.

The most important things to remember when you get threatening emails is that you should not delete them and you should never respond to them. If you respond, you are giving the matter the attention the sender wants. If you delete it, you have no proof that you have received anything. These are sometimes saved on email providers servers, but it is hard to get them to give them up, and the process can take a while.

The next thing you should do it to print out the entire email, headers included. The headers are important because the information contained within can be used to trace the email back to the person that sent it. Take your print out and go to the police to file a report. If you get more, do the same thing. If you can, do the same with the FBI. This is actually a Federal crime.

You may also want to forward a copy of the email to your Internet provider and the email service you use, if the two are different. You should also send the entire email (again, headers included) to the email provider from which the email was sent. No matter who you have sent this to and how many times you have printed the email out, still refrain from deleting. If you don't want to look at it, make a folder in your email account to file it away for later use, if needed.

You can also find some tools that will help you trace the origin of threatening emails if that is something you feel you should do. If it ends up being someone in your town or someone that you know, it is a good idea to avoid them. You can't do that if you don't know who they are. However, no matter what you find, do not contact the person in any way. Take what you have found to the police.