Problem Description
- You would like to alter an account so that it forwards to another mail account
Problem Resolution
It's important to note a few things before you proceed to set up the mail account to forward:
- When to use an Alias instead of a forward: If you haven't yet added the account in the Exchange administration panel within the Client Centre, then you may instead be looking for an account alias, rather than a forward. This is best used when you intend to forward the account to another one on the same domain. In this case for xyz@yourdomain.com to forward to abc@yourdomain.com, you would add xyz@yourdomain.com as an alias under abc@yourdomain.com from within the Client Centre
- When to use a Group Account instead of a forward: If you would like to have an email account that redirects all incoming messages to more than one account, in the Exchange administration panel, you can create a Group Account for exactly this purpose. Note that all destination addresses must be already hosted within your Exchange account.
- When to use a Shared Account instead of a forward: If you would like for one or more Exchange accounts to have access to a separate mailbox that all members can see and utilize (note: this is only supported within Outlook and Outlook Web Access), a Shared Account is what you want. This behaves similarly to when multiple people share the same email account.
Aliases, Group Accounts, and Shared Accounts do not incur any additional costs.
If you have decided that none of the three options above cover your needs, then you will need to configure the account to forward to another address. This can only be done from within the account settings - not the Exchange administration panel in our Client Centre.
How to create a forward with Exchange
The owner of the email account must first login to Outlook Web Access an ensure the recipient email address exists in their contact list (this is under the menu button in the upper left corner, then People)
Once you've successfully created the contact, select the settings icon in the upper right hand corner, then Options > Mail > Automatic Processing > Inbox and sweep rules.
- Choose the + button to add a rule
- Give it a name like "Forwarding externally"
- Set the condition to "Apply to all messages"
- Set the action to "Forward, redirect, or send" > Forward the message to
- Select the person from your contact list to send to
That's it!
Note: if you decide to test the forward, be sure that the address you send from is not part of that forward - neither the address you logged in to in order to configure it, nor the final destination address.
