Email forwarding

• Branding: Creating professional email addresses like [email protected] that forward to your personal inbox.
• Consolidation: Receiving emails from various domain-specific addresses in one primary inbox.
• Backup: Ensuring a copy of important emails is sent to an alternative address.

Key Considerations Before Setup

• Uniqueness: A forwarding address (alias) cannot share the same name as an existing mailbox on your domain. For instance, if you have [email protected] as a full mailbox, you cannot create an alias with the exact same name.
• No Mailbox Storage for Aliases: Email aliases strictly forward messages; they do not store emails themselves. If you need emails to be stored at the source address while also being forwarded, mailbox-level forwarding with the "keep a copy" option is necessary.
• AOL Address Restriction: Winhost, like many other hosts, does not support forwarding emails to @aol.com addresses due to specific security policies and relaying restrictions. It is strongly advised to use an alternative destination email provider.
• Modern Email Security (DMARC, SPF, DKIM): The landscape of email security is constantly evolving. Major email providers (Google, Yahoo, Apple) increasingly implement stringent authentication protocols like DMARC, SPF, and DKIM. Forwarded emails, especially those originating from external sources, can sometimes be flagged as spam or outright blocked if these authentication records are not correctly configured for your domain. This highlights the importance of maintaining proper DNS records and considering updating contacts with your primary email address for critical communications. Please follow the instructions in this article to create SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records for your domain: https://support.winhost.com/kb/a1599/email-authentication-through-spf-dkim-and-dmarc.aspx
• DNS Configuration: For email forwarding to function correctly, your domain's MX (Mail Exchange) records must point to Winhost's mail servers.

Setting Up Email Forwarding in SmarterMail

Method 1 - Creating an Email Alias (Forwarding Address)

Configuring a New Alias

1. Navigate to Settings: Once logged in, click on the Settings icon (often represented by a gear or cog wheel) usually located in the left-hand sidebar or top navigation bar.
2. Access Domain Settings: Within the settings menu, look for "Domain Settings" and then navigate to "Accounts" followed by "Aliases." (Menu labels might vary slightly based on your SmarterMail version).

1. Create a New Alias: Click the "New" or "Add" button to begin creating a new forwarding address.
2. Fill in Alias Details:
3. Alias: Enter the desired local part of the email address (the portion before the @yourdomain.tld). For example, entering "info" will create [email protected].
4. Display Name: (Optional) Provide a descriptive name for the alias, such as "Information Requests."
5. Email Address (Recipients): Crucially, add one or more destination email addresses where you want the emails to be forwarded. These can be mailboxes on your Winhost domain (e.g., [email protected]) or external email accounts (e.g., [email protected]). To add multiple recipients, simply enter each address, typically separated by a comma or on a new line, depending on the SmarterMail version.
6. Enable alias: Ensure this option is checked to activate the forwarding.
7. Save Changes: Click "Save" to apply your new alias configuration.

Method 2 - Mailbox-Level Forwarding

Configuring Forwarding for an Existing Mailbox

1. Access User Accounts: In SmarterMail web URL, login to the email user you want to setup the forwarding for.
2. Select Mailbox: Navigate to Settings --> Account
3. Locate Forwarding Settings: Within the user's settings, find the "Forwarding" section on the right side.
4. Enable and Configure Forwarding:
5. Forwarding Address: Enter the single destination email address where messages from this mailbox should be sent. Some SmarterMail versions may allow multiple addresses here, but it's more common for aliases to handle multiple destinations.
6. Keep a copy in mailbox: Make sure the option "Delete messages when forwarded" is NOT enabled if you want to save the copies of the forwarded messages.
7. Save Changes: Click "Save" to apply the forwarding settings to the mailbox.