
Typically, plain message-forwarding does alias-expansion, while proper message-forwarding, also named forwarding tout-court serves for mailing-lists. However, annoying misconfigured vacation autoreplies do reach authors. That way, bounce messages (which report a failure delivering a message to any list- subscriber) will not reach the author of a message. Authors submit messages to a reflector that performs remailing to each list address.

Electronic mailing lists furnish a typical example. This field holds the address to which mail-systems must send bounce messages - reporting delivery-failure (or success) - if any.īy contrast, the terms remailing or redistribution can sometimes mean re-sending the message and also rewriting the "envelope sender" field.
Mail forward service software#
The "envelope sender" field does not equate to the From header which Email client software usually displays: it represents a field used in the early stages of the SMTP protocol, and subsequently saved as the Return-Path header. Plain message-forwarding changes the envelope recipient(s) and leaves the envelope sender field untouched. Multiple, or discontinued addresses When users change their email address, or have several addresses, the user or an administrator may set up forwarding from these addresses, if still valid, to a single current one, in order to avoid losing messages. This allows users to have an email address that does not change if they change mailbox provider. Pseudonym-addresses Most domain name hosting facilities provide facilities to forward mail to another email address such as a mailbox at the user's Internet Service Provider there are also separate providers of mail forwarding services. An organization may forward messages intended for a given role to the address of the person(s) currently functioning in that role or office. Uses of server-based forwarding to different recipients Role-addresses info, sales, postmaster, and similar names can appear to the left of in email addresses. īecause of spam, it is becoming increasingly difficult to reliably forward mail across different domains, and some recommend avoiding it if at all possible. Protocol engineers sometimes use the term Mediator to refer to a forwarding server. ~/.forward files (see below) provide a typical example of server-based forwarding to different recipients.Įmail administrators sometimes use the term redirection as a synonym for server-based email-forwarding to different recipients. By contrast, primary servers can deliver a message to a user's mailbox and/or forward it by changing some envelope addresses.

A domain may also define backup servers they have no mailboxes and forward messages without changing any part of their envelopes. The domain name (the part appearing to the right of in an email address) defines the target server(s) įor the corresponding class of addresses.
