Email forwarding

Email forwarding sends incoming messages on one address to a different one. You can forward to a single destination, multiple destinations, or both keep a local copy and forward.

Set up a forwarder

1. Go to Services → click your hosting → Forwarders tile.
2. Click Add forwarder.
3. Enter:
   • Source — the email address that will receive messages.
   • Destination — where to forward them.
4. Save.

The forwarder is active immediately. New messages to the source forward to the destination.

Forwarding to multiple destinations

For one source forwarding to many destinations (e.g., support@yourdomain.com → multiple team members):

Create multiple forwarders, each with the same source and a different destination. Or, for cleaner setup:

1. Create a mailing list in cPanel (a more proper way to do this).
2. Add multiple subscribers.
3. The mailing list address forwards to all subscribers automatically.

Mailing lists also have nicer features (subscription management, archives, moderation).

Forwarding without a real mailbox

You can create forwarders for addresses that don't have a real mailbox. Useful for:

• info@, sales@, support@ — virtual addresses that fan out to actual team mailboxes.
• Disposable addresses — forwarders you can disable later if they get spammed.
• Old addresses — keep you@old-name.com forwarding to you@new-name.com after a rebrand.

The source address doesn't need to be a real mailbox; just create the forwarder and it works.

Forwarding AND keeping a local copy

If you want messages to forward AND stay in a local mailbox:

1. Create the email account first (with a mailbox).
2. Then create a forwarder with the same source.

Now incoming messages go to the local mailbox AND forward to the destination. Useful for archiving while still piping messages elsewhere.

"I forwarded to Gmail and now my emails go to spam there"

Common issue. Forwarded emails often fail SPF checks at the destination because the email's "From" address doesn't match the forwarding server's IP.

Mitigations:

• Use Gmail's "Mail Fetcher" instead of forwarding. In Gmail Settings → Accounts and Import → Check mail from other accounts → POP3 fetch from your Flashcloud account. Gmail pulls messages itself, no forwarding involved.
• Set up DKIM properly (which we do automatically) so your domain has independent authentication that survives forwarding.
• Configure SRS (Sender Rewriting Scheme) — rewrites the envelope sender during forwarding to pass SPF. Available in our setup; ask if it's enabled for your domain.

Domain-level forwarding (catch-all)

To forward everything sent to your domain to a single destination, set up a catch-all forwarder:

1. In the Forwarders tile, look for Default address or Catch-all.
2. Set it to Forward to with your destination address.
3. Save.

Now anything@yourdomain.com forwards to your destination. Useful for small teams that want one inbox to receive all mail, but a magnet for spam at scale.

Removing a forwarder

Same Forwarders tile. Click the forwarder → Remove. Forwarding stops immediately.

Forwarding vs aliases vs mailbox

Three things sometimes confused:

• Forwarder — message arrives, gets re-sent to destination. No local storage.
• Alias (in some systems) — multiple addresses share one mailbox. Same as creating multiple forwarders to the same destination, basically.
• Mailbox — actual local storage. The address has its own quota, password, IMAP access.

For most use cases:

• "I want a virtual address that goes to my real address" → Forwarder.
• "I want a separate inbox" → Mailbox.

Power-user note

Forwarders are implemented at the mail server level via Postfix/Exim's virtual aliases — much faster and more reliable than forwarding configured at the IMAP level. Messages forward without ever being delivered to local storage (when no mailbox exists for the source).