When and How to Use 2019’s Best Email Forwarding Services

Shikha Choudhary
HackerNoon.com
5 min readJul 2, 2019

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Email forwarding is a service that allows you to resend an email delivered to one email address to a different email address. It can also be used to direct emails coming to an address to a different destination. Very simply put, emails coming to a certain address can be routed to one or more other addresses. Similarly, emails to different addresses can be routed to a certain address so they end up in one mailbox. It can be very useful if you have a long, unmemorable email address. You can create a catchy forwarding email such as yourname@example.com and route all the emails to your original email address. While speaking of both client-based email forwarding and server-based forwarding, email users often use the same term.

Server-Based Forwarding

Server-based forward is also referred to as redirection. The domain name that appears right to “@” in an email address defines the target servers. In server-based forwarding, a domain can also define backup servers. Keep in mind, forwarding server do not have a mailbox. Incoming emails are automatically redirected to the destination without changing their envelope address. On the contrary, primary servers deliver a message to a user’s mailbox and forward it by making some changes in the envelope address. ~/.forward files is an example of server-based forwarding. It stores the email addresses of given users.

Upon setting up forwarding mail, you can easily forward messages on receiving. When you resend a message, you don’t see the original sender’s address but with forwarding you have the sender’s address, and you can seamlessly reply to those mails.

Client-Based Forwarding

Email users can manually forward a message with mail user agent. When you manually forward an email, all the original attachments, message text, and choice of headers are usually preserved meaning the message will still have original “from’’ and “reply to” identifiers. The users can, however, reply to forwarded messages. While forwarding email with attachments prepares for Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) extension that contains the original message, attachments, and the headers. Keep in mind that a lot of information about the message is disclosed like the information about the servers that transmitted the email. And users who receive this forwarded message can easily reply to these messages and open the attachments.

Why Do You Need Email Forwarding?

Email forward service can be helpful in a number of ways. Also, it can be very helpful for your business. Let’s see some scenarios where you’ll need an email forwarding service:

Managing Multiple Emails

Let’s just say you have multiple emails, and checking every single one of them could be a very boring and time-consuming task. Why bother checking every single mailbox when you can have all your emails redirected at a single address? Using an email forwarding service, you can manage all your emails efficiently and you won’t miss any important updates or news. Also, it saves you the hassle of remembering all the credentials. Learning how to setup email forwarding is easy. Once you know how to do that, managing emails would be very easy.

Getting Messages For An Old Address

Users can set permanent mail forwarding for all the emails delivered to an old, unused, or a dismissed email address. Chances are a lot of your clients or friends have an email address that you no longer use. By setting up email forwarding for those emails, you don’t lose important messages or information. Also, you do not worry about telling them about your new email address because you can still receive messages through email forwarding service.

Generic Email Address

You can use email forwarding service when you have a long, unmemorable email address. For example, you can create an email alias for your long email johnnywalter87546@gmail.com. It could be like john@abc.com and all the emails will be forwarded to johnnywalter87546@gmail.com. For business owners, it is very important to have an email with the company’s address. For example, you can create an email alias for your business such as contact@abc.com and have the messages delivered to your personal mailbox using an email forwarding service. With professional email forwarding services, you don’t even need to run your own mail server.

Managing Roles At Work

Another instance where email forwarder service can be helpful is managing the roles at office. For example, Sam is a salesman at your office who is in charge of all the sales-related operations. His email address is sales@domain.com. Now, let’s just say that Sam moved to a managerial position and still receives a lot of emails at previous email. You can have all the messages redirected to manager@domain.com. Using lightweight email forwarding services, you can make the task much easier.

Best Email Forwarding Services

It is true that sometimes you will need to manage multiple emails. But you can have all the emails routed at one mailbox and avoid bouncing between the tabs throughout the day. Here are a few email forwarding services you can consider:

DuoCircle

DuoCircle email forwarding is one of the best services that you can use. You can accept all the emails at one domain and forward it to another mail accounts without having to run your own mail server. With DuoCircle email forwarding service, you can create unlimited email aliases and forward each of those aliases to up to ten other email addresses. Also, you get phishing protection and keep your messages free of spam and malware.

Forward Email

Forward Email is a free to use, encrypted, and open source solution for your business. The source code is available on Github. You can rest assured that all your data is safe since you can see the code and it’s fully transparent. It is very easy to use. All you have to do is add a few DNS records, and you’re ready to go.

ImprovMX

ImprovMX is also a great tool. It is completely free email forwarding service best suited for smaller project. You can create an email alias for your business and receive emails at your original email address. No registration is required and you get 24 x 7 support. They also have a premium offer that provides extended support, extra privacy, and priority queue.

MailGun

MailGun is a nice email forwarding service with powerful APIs that lets you send, receive, and track all your emails easily and efficiently. They have a powerful sending infrastructured that hides all the messy details of sending bulk or transactional email. It is also very simple to use and can be a great choice for your needs.

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