Auto-Forwarding is a frequently used mailbox rule to move messages along from a secondary mailbox to a primary mailbox. But, this in itself has some shortcomings, such as forwarding spam messages along or failing to forward messages along due to security policies put in place by the original sender of the message.
We have in the past written about auto-forwarding rules and the issues it can cause, you can read more about that here. But we aren’t here to talk about the problem you may encounter using auto-forwarding, we are here to talk about how to get messages from Mailbox A to Mailbox B without using auto-forwarding rules.
Many of us have multiple mailboxes, some for work, some for personal use, some for specialized purposes, and often we need to funnel messages from one to another. Previously, the simplest way to accomplish this was to create auto-forwarding rules. These rules directed your mailbox to take messages delivered to Mailbox A and then send them onto Mailbox B. In the past, this was the effective solution to direct all your mail into a single mailbox; but spoofing and phishing has forced many businesses to implement stricter security measures, leaving auto-forwarding rules unable to complete their task.
Auto-forwarding Rules Are Becoming Less Effective
With the growing usage of authentication and security technologies like DMARC, auto-forwarding rules are becoming less effective. As these technologies become more prevalent and ubiquitous, it will be harder to ensure that forwarded messages will arrive at the destination mailbox. Depending on the technologies and policies of the original sender of the message, the forwarded message may end up in your spam folder every time, or it may not arrive at all.
How to Ensure That Forwarded Messages Arrive At the Destination Mailbox
There is a solution out there for this, and most major mailbox providers support it in some fashion. The solution is to set up an IMAP or POP connection from your primary mailbox to your other secondary mailboxes. This allows your primary mailbox to reach out across the internet and pull the messages from your other mailboxes, rather than having your other mailboxes send messages to your primary mailbox. This action allows you to retrieve your messages without having to forward them, circumventing any of the issues generated by forwarding messages. This will be especially important to ensuring that you get the messages that you need.
Another solution is to have mail applications, such as Apple Mail or Outlook, connect to multiple mailboxes. This will allow you to view the mail in all the separate mailboxes, keep them separate, but accessible from a central application.
As stated earlier, most major mailbox providers support this feature and below are few links to guides on configuring your mailbox to utilize this feature. Also included are some links showing how to setup a mail application to use multiple mailboxes.
Yahoo:
https://help.yahoo.com/kb/SLN22048.html
Gmail:
https://support.google.com/mail/answer/21289?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en
O365 or outlook:
https://support.office.com/en-gb/article/Add-your-other-email-accounts-to-Outlook-com-c5224df4-5885-4e79-91ba-523aa743f0ba
Apple Mail:
https://support.apple.com/kb/PH22275?locale=en_US
iPhone mail:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201320
How to Identify Forwarding Accounts That Could be Causing Message Delivery Issues
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