Forwarding Emails from a Mailbox

Forwarding lets you automatically send all incoming mail to another address (like a personal Gmail or a CRM). This is useful for shared addresses, temporary employees, or consolidating multiple 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.

Who this is for

• Starter, Pro & Agency plans — forwarding is active and working. Starter plans support direct mailbox forwarding (up to 3 rules per mailbox).
• Nano plan — you can configure forwarding settings, but they stay inactive until you upgrade. Your settings are saved and will activate the moment you move to Starter or higher.

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 destination email address in the Forward to field.
3. Choose whether to Keep a copy in this mailbox:
   • Checked: Messages stay in your TrekMail mailbox AND a copy is sent to the destination.
   • Unchecked: Messages are redirected entirely — nothing is saved in TrekMail.
4. Click Save Forwarding Settings.

Bulk forwarding

To set up forwarding for multiple mailboxes at once:

1. Select mailboxes using the checkboxes in the list.
2. Choose Set forwarding... from the bulk actions dropdown.
3. Enter the destination address and apply.

How forwarding works

When a message arrives, TrekMail's mail server evaluates the forwarding rules at the server level — no application code is involved in the routing decision. This means forwarding is fast and reliable.

SPF and authentication: Forwarded emails pass through SRS (Sender Rewriting Scheme) so they don't fail SPF checks at the 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."

This prevents forwarding to non-existent domains, which would cause every incoming email to bounce.

Common issues

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

• Forwarding option shows "Inactive" You're on the Nano plan. Your settings are saved — upgrade to Starter or higher to activate.

• Forwarding loop You've set up A → B and B → A. Make sure the chain ends at a real inbox. TrekMail detects loops up to 10 hops and will block the configuration.

• Emails missing (not in TrekMail, not in destination) "Keep a copy" is unchecked and the destination rejected the email. Enable Keep a copy until you confirm the 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.