How to Automatically Forward Emails to Another Account in Microsoft Outlook

Managing multiple email accounts across work, personal projects, or separate business entities can easily lead to missed messages and duplicated communication workflows. If you are taking extended leave, collaborating closely with an assistant, or centralising your daily communications into a single primary inbox, setting up automatic email forwarding saves hours of manual message sorting. Microsoft Outlook provides robust forwarding mechanisms—both through account-level forwarding and granular mailbox rules—ensuring incoming messages route to designated recipients seamlessly.

Forwarding vs Redirecting: Choosing the Right Method

When routing messages automatically in Outlook, it is important to understand the technical difference between Forwarding and Redirecting:

• Forwarding: Creates a new message sent from your mailbox to the target address. The message header indicates that the email was forwarded by you, and clicking “Reply” will address the reply back to your Outlook mailbox.
• Redirecting: Passes the original message through directly to the recipient without altering the original “From” address header. When the destination recipient clicks “Reply”, their response goes directly to the original outside sender rather than your forwarding mailbox.

How to Set Up Account-Level Forwarding in Outlook on the Web

Account-level forwarding operates directly on Microsoft Exchange cloud servers, meaning emails forward continuously even when your computer is turned off and Outlook desktop is closed:

1. Open your web browser and sign in to Outlook on the Web (or Outlook.com).
2. Click the gear icon (Settings) in the upper-right corner of the top navigation bar.
3. In the Settings menu, navigate to Mail > Forwarding.
4. Check the box labelled Enable forwarding.
5. Enter the target email address where you want all incoming messages delivered.
6. Check the box labelled Keep a copy of forwarded messages if you want messages to remain in your Outlook inbox as well. Important: Leaving this unchecked deletes the email from your Outlook mailbox once forwarded.
7. Click Save to activate automatic cloud-level forwarding.

How to Set Up Conditional Forwarding Rules in Classic Outlook Desktop

If you only want specific types of emails forwarded—such as messages from particular clients, emails marked as high importance, or messages with specific keywords in the subject line—use Outlook Rules:

1. Open the Microsoft Outlook desktop application on Windows.
2. Click the File tab in the upper-left corner.
3. Under Account Information, click Manage Rules & Alerts.
4. In the E-mail Rules tab, click New Rule.
5. Under the section titled Start from a blank rule, select Apply rule on messages I receive and click Next.
6. Select your desired filtering conditions:
   • Check from people or public group to forward emails from specific senders.
   • Check with specific words in the subject for project-based forwarding.
   • Leave all boxes unchecked and click Next if you want every received message forwarded.
7. In the actions step, select:
   • forward it to people or public group (standard forward).
   • Or redirect it to people or public group (preserves original sender reply headers).
8. In the bottom pane, click the blue underlined link labelled people or public group to enter the destination email address.
9. Click Next to add optional exceptions (e.g., except if it is marked as private).
10. Assign a descriptive name to the rule (e.g., “Forward Project Alerts to Jane”), verify that Turn on this rule is checked, and click Finish.

How to Forward Emails in the New Outlook for Windows and Mac

In the New Outlook for Windows and Outlook for Mac, rules are synchronised directly with Exchange cloud policies:

1. Click the gear icon (Settings) in the top-right toolbar.
2. Navigate to Mail > Rules.
3. Click Add new rule.
4. Name your rule, and select a condition (such as Apply to all messages).
5. Under Add an action, choose Forward to or Redirect to.
6. Type the recipient’s email address and press Enter.
7. Click Save.

Troubleshooting External Forwarding Restrictions

If emails fail to arrive at external Gmail, Yahoo, or third-party business addresses, your organization’s Microsoft 365 IT administrator may have disabled external auto-forwarding for cybersecurity and anti-phishing compliance.

In Microsoft 365 Defender, outbound anti-spam policies often block automatic forwarding by default. If your rules fail to deliver externally, contact your IT administrator to request an exception or assign an outbound forwarding policy to your mailbox.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I automatically forward emails to multiple recipients?

Yes. When configuring a forwarding rule, you can select multiple email contacts or an internal distribution group to forward messages to several colleagues simultaneously.

Do forwarded emails include attachments?

Yes. Both automatic forwarding and redirecting preserve all original file attachments, images, and HTML formatting without compression.

How do I stop automatic email forwarding in Outlook?

To disable forwarding, return to Settings > Mail > Forwarding and uncheck Enable forwarding, or open Manage Rules & Alerts and uncheck or delete the forwarding rule.