What is email forwarding?
Email forwarding automatically sends messages received by one address to another address. Businesses commonly use forwarding to maintain communication when employees or responsibilities change.
Server-side forwarding
When forwarding is configured on the mail server, incoming messages can be transferred automatically without requiring user action. This is useful for former employee accounts and departmental addresses.
Business use cases
When an employee changes roles, mail sent to the old address can be forwarded to the new responsible person. Addresses used by sales or support teams can also distribute incoming messages to appropriate users.
Be careful with external forwarding
Automatically sending corporate messages to personal Gmail, Outlook or other external accounts may create security risks because company information leaves systems controlled by the organization.
SPF and DMARC considerations
Email authentication technologies can affect certain forwarding scenarios. SPF and DMARC validation may behave differently when a message is forwarded, so mail systems should handle forwarding correctly.
Create a forwarding policy
Organizations should define who is allowed to create forwarding rules and whether forwarding to external addresses is permitted. Central administration helps prevent forgotten or unauthorized forwarding configurations.