Forwarding emails can be very useful when you are working with a team or group. Essentially, you are taking an email and re-sending it to one or more people. This way, multiple people can access the same information.
You may use this feature to make sure everyone understands new rules, guidelines, and deadlines. Or, it is a great way to take information that comes from one person and disseminate it to a bunch of people at once.
In this step-by-step guide, we will go over what email forwarding is, the types of email forwarding, email forwarding etiquette, and how to set up email forwarding with both Gmail and Outlook hosts. Read on to learn how to forward emails to communicate more effectively at work.
What Is Email Forwarding?
Email forwarding is when you take a message you have received through email and send it to another person or multiple people. All the information from the original message will go directly to the recipients. At the top of the body of the email, the date, timestamp, original sender, and original recipient will be visible.
You can type a message above this to let your team know why you are sending the message.
Forwarding emails saves time and helps promote better communication in the workspace because you can get the same information to others quickly and efficiently.
Automatic vs. Manual Forwarding
You can forward email messages in two ways: automatically and manually. There are advantages and disadvantages to both.
Automatic
With automatic message forwarding, you don’t have to worry about remembering how to forward emails to your team members every time they come in.
Once you set up the automatic forwarding, the emails will be delivered to your desired recipients each time. This is great if you want to send your emails to another address you own, or if you want certain emails to be shared with a particular group each time they arrive in your inbox.
Automatic forwarding can also be helpful if you plan to be out of the office for a while and need your emails forwarded to a colleague in your absence.
When you set up automatic forwarding, you can have all of the messages in your inbox forwarded to certain recipients, which can be problematic if you don’t want your team to receive all your communications.
Or, you can set up parameters for automatic message forwarding. If your messages come from a certain sender or have certain words in the subject line, then they can be auto-forwarded to others.
The main problem with automatic forwarding is email bombing other people’s inboxes with your new emails. Also, if you don’t set up the parameters correctly, you can end up sending people emails you don’t want them to see. Also, if the recipients you want the email to go to change each time, this might not be the best method to choose.
Manual
Manual forwarding is more basic. In this case, when you receive an email that you want to share with another recipient or send to another email address you own, you simply send that email and only that email to others. This can be done once you open the email or later if you think the content is worth sharing.
This method can be more time-consuming, and you need to be able to remember how to properly forward an email each time with this method. However, you get to control which emails go to which people each time, which keeps sensitive information from getting into the wrong hands.
Email Forwarding Etiquette
It is important to note that as email is often the way you are communicating with colleagues and clients in a business setting, there are some proper email forwarding etiquette rules to consider.
If you forward emails to a colleague, it is considered polite to include a brief introduction before the message to let them know why you are forwarding them this email. Of course, if this is a professional email, you should consider using a greeting, a brief message, and then your email signature at the end.
Before sharing the email, make sure there is no confidential information inside the email that should not be shared. Since you can edit the body of the forwarded email before you send it, you can delete any private information before sharing the email. Email privacy is essential in the workplace.
It is also usually polite to make sure that the content of the email is meant to be shared with others. You may want to ask the original sender if it is ok to share this information with your team.
Finally, try not to spam your coworkers with tons of forwarded emails. You should try to selectively choose which emails are the most important to share with your colleagues.
Forwarding Emails Using Gmail
Gmail Manual Forwarding
1. Open Gmail and log on to your Gmail account. Sign in using your email address and password.
2. Look through your Gmail inbox and locate the email you wish to forward.
3. Click on the email to open it.
4. At the top of your email, you will find the information about the sender, the date, etc. In the top right corner, there are some icons. Select the arrow facing right (the forward icon). If this is not immediately visible in your email, you may need to select the icon that is a series of 3 dots stacked on top of each other. This should bring a drop-down menu of other email options, which has the forward icon.
5. Once you have selected the forward icon, the email will make a copy into the body of the email. At the top, there will be a blank space next to the word “To.” This is where you will type in the forwarding email addresses.
6. You will also notice the letters “Cc” and “Bcc.” “Cc” stands for carbon copy. It copies the email and sends it to another address. Essentially, if you type an email address here, that person will send an exact copy of the email you are forwarding to other recipients.
You may wish to do this if you have a supervisor or project manager you want to keep in the loop about your communications. Their email address will be displayed at the top of the message all of your recipients receive. They also will receive all Reply and Reply All messages from people in the thread.
“Bcc” stands for blind carbon copy. In this case, the person you are sending a copy of the email to will not receive Reply and Reply All emails in the thread. Their email address will also not be displayed at the top of the forwarded message.
You can choose to add recipients to these sections at this point if you choose.
7. Above the body of the message, it should say “Forwarded Message.” You can type above here to let your team know why you are forwarding the message or to add any relevant information. You can also remove any sensitive message in the body of the forwarded message at this point, as well.
8. Once you have completed any edits or additional information you wish to provide, you hit the large, blue “Send” icon in the bottom left-hand corner. You should get a notification that says “Message Sent.”
Gmail Automatic Forwarding
1. Open up Gmail and log in to your Gmail account using your email address and password.
2. In the top right corner, there is a gear icon that represents the Settings. Click that to bring up a drop-down menu with email settings. Click “See all settings” at the top.
3. Now, locate the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab. Click this.
4. Then, click “Add Forwarding Address”
5. Enter the forwarding email address you would like to send all of your emails to and click “Next.”
6. A notification will pop up for you to verify the email address. Click “Proceed.”
7. A verification email will be sent to the email address provided by Gmail. To complete the process, the recipient will need to click on the verification link inside that email and insert the code they request. This is generally done if you want to send all your emails to another account you own.
8. This will automatically forward all of your emails to the forwarding email address. If you want to discontinue this automatic forwarding at any time, follow the steps from 1 – 3 of this tutorial, then select “Disable forwarding.” This stops your emails from automatically forwarding to the other address.
9. You can also add additional forwarding addresses in the same place if you want to do more than one.
Creating Email Forwarding Filters with Gmail
1. Log in to your Gmail account using your email address and password.
2. Go to your Gmail inbox and select the gear icon at the top right of the page.
3. Select “See All Settings” in the drop-down menu. Click the tab “Filters and Blocked Addresses.”
4. Select “Create a new filter.”
5. Complete the form with the emails and criteria you want to manage your forwarded messages. When you finish, select “Create filter.”
6. Emails that fit the parameters will be displayed. Select the dropdown icon next to the search bar to show more options.
7. Click “Forward it to” and choose the email address you want to forward it to.
8. Select “Create Filter” to complete the process. You can repeat the process for other email addresses.
For more information about forwarding emails using Gmail, check out their customer support.
Forwarding Emails Using Outlook
Outlook Manual Forwarding
1. Open up Microsoft Outlook. Sign in using your email address and password.
2. Locate the email you wish to forward and click on that email.
3. At the bottom of the email, there should be an icon that says “Forward.” Click that.
4. Enter the forwarding email address(s) at the top. If you include more than one address, separate each address with a comma. You can use the “Cc” and “Bcc” features the same as described in the Gmail tutorial above.
5. Add any message or content you wish to send along with the forwarded email in the body of the message.
6. Click send and the email will forward.
Outlook Automatic Forwarding
1. Sign into your Outlook email account.
2. Select the gear “Settings” icon at the top right corner.
3. Choose the “View All Outlook Settings”
4. Then, go to the Mail tab. Followed by the “Rules” tab. Finally, click Add new rule.
5. You will create a name for this rule, which can be whatever you choose.
6. Then, on the “Add a condition field” select the forwarding settings you want for your messages. If you want all of your emails to forward to one address select “Apply to all messages.” However, to send specific emails, here is where you can create the filter conditions.
7. In the “Add an Action” section, you can further filter the conditions. Select “Forward to” and input the recipient’s email addresses in the box.
8. Click “Save” to complete the action and save changes to your email formatting.
Note that for both email services, it will begin to forward mail starting with new incoming emails. If you have chosen to forward all of your emails, a copy of incoming mail will be sent to the forwarding email addresses you provided.
Check out Microsoft’s customer support for help turning off automatic forwarding.
Manually Forward Emails Using Mobile Apps
Sharing your email messages on mobile apps is very similar. For iPhones and Androids, go into your email application and click the email you want to forward.
Select the email options button, this is often an arrow icon. Click the “Forward” icon. Type the email address or addresses of the recipients into the “To” field. Type any message you desire in the body, and select the “Send” arrow icon at the top.
It’s much easier to set up automatic email forwarding via a desktop application rather than a mobile app.
Messaging with Sekur
Forwarding emails can be an effective way to communicate with your coworkers and to keep every team member in the loop.
You can also use Sekur to securely and privately communicate with coworkers and clients. With a Swiss IP address to keep you anonymous online, high-speed servers, unlimited data, and military-grade encryption, you can feel secure sending emails with our server. Chats are fully private with no hidden storage or data mining.
