Setting Up Email Forwarding for a TrekMail Mailbox

Forwarding lets you automatically send incoming mail to one or more other addresses (a personal Gmail, a CRM, an assistant). Useful for shared addresses, temporary cover, or consolidating several inboxes into one.

Looking for conditional forwarding? If you only want to forward some emails (based on sender, subject, or content), use Mail Filters instead. The Forwarding tab forwards everything that arrives.

How many destinations per mailbox?

Each mailbox can forward to multiple addresses simultaneously. The cap depends on your plan:

If you exceed the cap, the dashboard will refuse to save and tell you how many you tried to add vs. how many your plan allows. To raise the cap, upgrade your plan.

Where to find it

1. Go to Mailboxes.
2. Click Settings (gear icon) next to the mailbox you want to configure.
3. You'll land on the Forwarding tab — one of five tabs (Aliases is listed first):

Setting up forwarding

1. On the Forwarding tab, check Enable forwarding.
2. Enter the first destination in the Forward to field.
3. To add more recipients, click + Add destination. Each row is its own destination — remove a row with the trash icon. The counter under the heading (e.g. 3 of 15 used) shows where you stand against the plan cap.
4. Choose whether to Keep a copy in this mailbox:
   • Checked: Messages stay in your TrekMail mailbox AND a copy is sent to every destination.
   • Unchecked: Messages are redirected to all destinations — nothing is saved in TrekMail.
5. Click Save changes.

Keep-copy applies to the whole forwarding setup, not to individual destinations: either every destination gets a copy and you keep the original, or every destination receives a redirect.

Bulk forwarding

To set up the same forwarding configuration for several mailboxes at once:

1. Select the mailboxes using the checkboxes in the list.
2. Choose Set forwarding… from the bulk actions dropdown.
3. Enter the destination addresses (one per row) and apply.

Override semantics. Bulk Set forwarding replaces the destination list on every selected mailbox with whatever you enter — any existing destinations on those mailboxes are dropped. The modal shows an amber "Bulk override" callout to make this explicit. If you want to add a destination to one mailbox without touching the others, edit that mailbox directly (see below).

Single-mailbox shortcut. If you select exactly one mailbox and choose Set forwarding…, the dashboard skips the bulk modal and takes you straight to that mailbox's Forwarding tab. There you see the current destinations, can add or remove individual rows, and the override-everything semantics don't apply.

Per-mailbox validation. Bulk-set validates each mailbox individually — if any selected mailbox would create a forwarding loop or self-forward to itself, the whole batch is rejected with the offending mailbox called out, and nothing is saved.

Other bulk forwarding actions.

Removing a destination saves automatically

In single-mailbox edit (the Forwarding tab) and in webmail Settings → Forwarding, clicking the trash icon on a destination row removes it AND saves immediately — no extra Save click needed. The only exception is when there's exactly one destination row left: trash on the last row clears the input but waits for you to either add a new destination or toggle forwarding off, because saving an enabled-with-no-destinations state would fail.

In the bulk override modal, the trash icon behaves the same way: removing a destination immediately submits the bulk action with the shortened list to every selected mailbox.

Spotting multi-destination mailboxes in the list

On the Mailboxes page, a mailbox with extra destinations shows the first address followed by a small +N badge:

→ Forward to alice@example.com +2

Hover the badge to see the total destination count.

How forwarding works

When a message arrives, TrekMail's mail server fans the delivery out to every configured destination at the server level — no application code is involved in the routing decision. Multi-destination delivery is therefore fast and reliable, and a single failed destination does not block the others.

SPF and authentication: Forwarded emails pass through SRS (Sender Rewriting Scheme) so they don't fail SPF checks at any destination. TrekMail also uses ARC (Authenticated Received Chain) to preserve the original sender's authentication, so receiving servers like Gmail trust the forwarded message.

Destination validation

When you save a forwarding address, TrekMail checks that the destination domain has valid MX (or A) DNS records. If the domain can't receive email, you'll see:

"The forward-to domain does not appear to accept email. Please check the address."

The check runs per destination — if you've added five addresses and only one is broken, the save is rejected with that address called out so you can fix it without touching the others.

Common issues

• "The forward-to domain does not appear to accept email." Check the destination for typos. If it's correct, the destination domain may have DNS issues — ask the recipient to verify.

• "Too many forwarding destinations: N given, max K on this plan." You've gone over your plan's destination cap. Remove rows or upgrade for a higher limit.

• Forwarding option shows "Inactive" You're on the Free plan or your subscription has lapsed. Your settings are saved — upgrade or renew to activate.

• Forwarding loop You've set up A → B and B → A (or a longer chain that comes back to itself). Make sure each chain ends at a real external inbox. TrekMail traces forwarding chains within your account up to 10 hops and blocks the configuration if it loops.

• Emails missing (not in TrekMail, not in any destination) "Keep a copy" is unchecked and at least one destination rejected the email. Enable Keep a copy until you've confirmed every destination is reliable.

• Forwarded emails go to spam TrekMail uses ARC and SRS to preserve authentication. If you still see issues, check that the destination hasn't blocklisted TrekMail's IP.