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	"id": "79aa4e47-a4e0-4c79-b24e-d3917c8f770a",
	"created_at": "2026-04-06T00:10:32.569381Z",
	"updated_at": "2026-04-10T03:20:30.814273Z",
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	"sha1_hash": "e047cb59e3a8bdfcb373404284f0d36f235ce733",
	"title": "Exchange and Office 365: Mail Forwarding",
	"llm_title": "",
	"authors": "",
	"file_creation_date": "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z",
	"file_modification_date": "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z",
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	"plain_text": "Exchange and Office 365: Mail Forwarding\r\nBy kexugit\r\nArchived: 2026-04-05 21:17:23 UTC\r\nExchange Server and Office 365 offer many different options for forwarding messages to different recipients.\r\nSome of these options exist for users and others are for administrators. Administrators can also control how\r\nforwarding is handled within the organization.\r\nThe forwarding options available to clients and administrators are described below. Each of these methods has\r\nboth pros and cons when implemented:\r\nUsers can create a forwarding rule within Outlook or Outlook Web App\r\nAn administrator can create a client rule for forwarding\r\nAn administrator can set the ForwardingSMTPAddress parameter on a mailbox\r\nUsers can set the ForwardingSMTPAddress parameter on a mailbox\r\nAn administrator can set the ForwardingAddress parameter on a mailbox\r\nIn this post, I’m going to review each of these methods, the pros and cons, and the administrator controls in place\r\nfor these options.\r\nForwarding rule within Outlook and Outlook Web App:\r\nUsers can create Inbox rules in both Outlook and Outlook Web App (OWA). One of the options is a rule to\r\nforward messages to a different recipient, which can be an internal or external recipient. In the example below, a\r\nrule has been created that forwards all messages received in the mailbox to an external recipient.\r\nimage\r\nClient-side rules allow a great deal of flexibility when establishing forwarding. For example, say you want to\r\nforward emails to another internal or external recipient based on who sent the messages. The rules wizard allows\r\nthis level of granularity. From an administrative standpoint client-side rules can also be helpful since they can be\r\nmanaged by the user. This obviates the need for administrators to be involved in the day-to-day management of\r\nthese rules.\r\nClient-side rules though are not immediately obvious to administrators. This may cause issues in environments\r\nthat want to control where their data is stored and how it is transmitted. No specific permissions are required for\r\nusers to create rules and there exists no method to limit this type of rule. Messages received by the destination\r\nmailbox look like forwarded messages; they have the same presentation as if the end-user selected the forward\r\noption on the message and specified the recipient.\r\nimage\r\nhttps://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/timmcmic/2015/06/08/exchange-and-office-365-mail-forwarding-2/\r\nPage 1 of 9\n\nMessage tracking also confirms that the sender is the mailbox with the forwarding rule enabled and the recipient is\r\nthe address specified on the forwarding rule.\r\nimage \r\nThis may cause issues in message handling, as subsequent replies would go to the mailbox the message was\r\nforwarded from rather than the original sender of the message.\r\nWhen a message is forwarded by a client-side rule an additional header is added to the message: X-MS-Exchange-Organization-AutoForwarded. When the value of this header is set to TRUE this signifies the message was created\r\nby auto-forwarding.\r\nForwarding rule created by the administrator:\r\nIn Exchange 2010 and Exchange 2013, administrators have the New-InboxRule cmdlet, which allows them to\r\ncreate client-side rules within a mailbox. To create a forwarding rule that matches the previous rules wizard\r\nexample you would run a command similar to the following:\r\nPS C:\\\u003e New-InboxRule -Name ForwardSharon -Mailbox 2148 -ForwardTo:SHARON@domain.com\r\nName Enabled Priority RuleIdentity\r\n---- ------- -------- ------------\r\nForwardSharon True 1 11219471045587107842\r\nWhen using the Outlook client and viewing the rules in this mailbox, the administrator-created rule is present.\r\nimage\r\nThis rule has the same considerations and outcomes as a rule created by a user in Outlook; the only difference is\r\nthat an administrator added it to the mailbox.\r\nForwarding using the forwardingSMTPAddress parameter of a mailbox created by the administrator:\r\nEach mailbox has a parameter named forwardingSMTPAddress. This parameter is set by the administrator using\r\nSet-Mailbox. Any SMTP address can be specified in this parameter.\r\nPS C:\\\u003e Set-Mailbox 2148 -ForwardingSmtpAddress sharon@domain.com\r\nPS C:\\\u003e Get-Mailbox 2148 | fl name,forwardingSMTPAddress,delivertomailboxandforward\r\nName : Tim McMichael\r\nForwardingSmtpAddress : smtp:sharon@domain.com\r\nDeliverToMailboxAndForward : False\r\nWhen this type of forwarding is used, the user has no control and the forwarding process must be administratively\r\nmanaged. In addition, there is no granularity with this implementation; all messages for the mailbox are forwarded\r\nto the specified SMTP address. Because the field allows any SMTP address to be specified there is no need to\r\ncreate a mail-enabled object within your directory to establish this type of forwarding.\r\nhttps://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/timmcmic/2015/06/08/exchange-and-office-365-mail-forwarding-2/\r\nPage 2 of 9\n\nMessaging handling is also different with this type of forwarding. When the message arrives in the destination\r\nmailbox it appears as if it was sent directly to this mailbox.  The TO field of the message reflects the original\r\nrecipient, and the FROM field reflects the original sender. The message does not appear as forwarded. \r\nimage\r\nMessage tracking shows that the sender of the message is the original sender and the recipient is the forwarding\r\naddress.\r\nimage\r\nThis allows the recipient to reply to the message and have the message sent directly to the original sender. It is\r\nimportant to understand this behavior in scenarios where compliance or journaling is used, as subsequent replies\r\nwill bypass the original organization thereby bypassing journaling and compliance processes.\r\nThe message header also has appended the X-MS-Exchange-Organization-AutoForwarded header. When the\r\nvalue of this header is set to TRUE, in indicates that the message was created by auto-forwarding.\r\nForwarding using the forwardingSMTPAddress parameter of a mailbox created by the user:\r\nIndividual users may set the forwardingSMTPAddress parameter by using Outlook Web Access.  When logged\r\ninto Outlook Web Access access to this feature is available under options.\r\nimage\r\nWhen the options menu is displayed selecting accounts –\u003e forwarding will present the dialog to establish a\r\nforwarding address.  Note:  As the options pane may be subject to modification this setting may move to different\r\nareas within options.\r\nimage\r\nIn the forwarding dialog the user may select to enable forwarding and enter any SMTP address.\r\nimage\r\nWhen reviewing the settings of the user via powershell we can observe that the forwardingSMTPAddress property\r\nis set. \r\nGet-Mailbox \u003cALIAS\u003e| fl name,*forwarding*\r\nName : \u003cNAME\u003e\r\nForwardingAddress :\r\nForwardingSmtpAddress : smtp:bob@contoso.com\r\nThe user setting the forwarding address has the same considerations and concerns as if the administrator had set\r\nthe property.\r\nForwarding using the forwardingAddress parameter of a mailbox:\r\nhttps://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/timmcmic/2015/06/08/exchange-and-office-365-mail-forwarding-2/\r\nPage 3 of 9\n\nThe forwardingAddress parameter of a mailbox is also managed by an administrator using Set-Mailbox. Unlike\r\nforwardingSMTPAddress, the forwarding address parameter must be an object that is defined within the directory.\r\nAttempting to set this value to an object not within the directory returns an error.\r\nPS C:\\\u003e Set-Mailbox 2148 -ForwardingAddress sharon@domain.com\r\nCouldn't find object \"sharon@domain.com\". Please make sure that it was spelled correctly or specify a different\r\nobject.\r\n+ CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:) [Set-Mailbox], ManagementObjectNotFoundException\r\n+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : [Server=BN1PR06MB101,RequestId=3374349c-1924-43b2-bb21-\r\nd2243774a1d4,TimeStamp=7/20/2014\r\n5:37:29 PM] [FailureCategory=Cmdlet-ManagementObjectNotFoundException]\r\nF2A1EE0E,Microsoft.Exchange.Management.Reci\r\npientTasks.SetMailbox\r\n+ PSComputerName : pod51043psh.outlook.com\r\nThe forwarding address parameter can be another mailbox-enabled object, a mail-enabled user, or a mail contact. \r\nIn this example, I have created a mail contact for my external recipient. \r\nPS C:\\\u003e New-MailContact -Name Sharon -ExternalEmailAddress sharon@domain.com\r\nName Alias RecipientType\r\n---- ----- -------------\r\nSharon Sharon MailContact\r\nI then enabled the forwardingAddress parameter on the mail contact.\r\nPS C:\\\u003e Set-Mailbox 2148 -ForwardingAddress Sharon\r\nThe setting was validated with Get-Mailbox.\r\nPS C:\\\u003e Get-Mailbox 2148 | fl name,forwardingAddress,delivertomailboxandforward\r\nName : Tim McMichael\r\nForwardingAddress : Sharon\r\nDeliverToMailboxAndForward : False\r\nSimilar to the fowardingSMTPAdderss parameter the forwardingAddress parameter must be managed by the\r\nadministrator. The end-user has no control over this specific parameter and the end-user will not know that\r\nforwarding is enabled. Unlike client rules, the use of the forwardingAddress parameter applies to all messages\r\nreceived to the destination mailbox; there is no way to allow this function to work on specific messages.\r\nMessaging handling is also similar to using the fowardingSMTPAddress parameter. The message arrives in the\r\ndestination mailbox as if it was addressed directly to that mailbox. The TO address shows the original recipient\r\nand the FROM address shows the original sender. \r\nimage\r\nhttps://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/timmcmic/2015/06/08/exchange-and-office-365-mail-forwarding-2/\r\nPage 4 of 9\n\nThis allows the forwarded recipient to reply to the message and have it returned directly to the original sender.\r\nMessaging tracking also shows that the sender is the original sender and the recipient is the address configured for\r\nforwarding.\r\nimage\r\nIt is important to understand this behavior in scenarios where compliance or journaling is used as subsequent\r\nreplies will bypass the original organization thereby bypassing journaling and compliance processes.\r\nIn this scenario the X-MS-Exchange-Organization-AutoForwarded header is not stamped on the message.\r\nAutoforwarding and delivertoandforward:\r\nEach mailbox also has a parameter called deliverToAndForward. This allows the administrator to specify if the\r\nmessage should also be delivered to the mailbox where forwarding is enabled. This setting applies ONLY to\r\nforwarding that is configured by using the forwardingAddress or forwardingSMTPAddress parameters. Client-side\r\nrules are unaware of this setting.\r\nAutoforwarding and remoteDomains:\r\nWithin Exchange and Office 365, administrators can create remote domains. By default, every tenant leverages the\r\n‘ *’ domain. When a specific remote domain does not exist, the ‘*’ remote domain setting are applied to the\r\nmessage.\r\nA property of a remote domain is autoForwardEnabled property. This allows administrators to define if auto-forwarding is allowed on messages destined to the domain specified.\r\nPS C:\\\u003e Get-RemoteDomain | fl name,domainname,autoForwardEnabled\r\nName : Default\r\nDomainName : *\r\nAutoForwardEnabled : True\r\nBy default auto-forwarding is allowed to all domains. Administrators can use the remote domain settings to\r\ncontrol how forwarding outside their organization is handled. Please note: this does not change how forwarding is\r\nhandled within the organization.\r\nIn this example, I am creating a specific remote domain rule and have disabled auto-forwarding. \r\nPS C:\\\u003e New-RemoteDomain -Name ExternalDomain -DomainName domain.com\r\nName DomainName AllowedOOFType\r\n---- ---------- --------------\r\nExternalDomain domain.com External\r\nPS C:\\\u003e Set-RemoteDomain -Identity ExternalDomain -AutoForwardEnabled:$FALSE\r\nThe settings can be verified with get-remoteDomain:\r\nhttps://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/timmcmic/2015/06/08/exchange-and-office-365-mail-forwarding-2/\r\nPage 5 of 9\n\nPS C:\\\u003e Get-RemoteDomain ExternalDomain | fl domainname,autoforwardenabled\r\nDomainName : domain.com\r\nAutoForwardEnabled : False\r\nTo test this feature I set the forwardingAddress on the mailbox to a recipient in the domain.com domain. When a\r\nmessage is addressed to the mailbox where forwarding is enabled, it never makes it to the destination. The same\r\nbehavior would occur if a client-side forwarding rule is used.\r\nWhen a client-side rule or the forwardingSMTPAddress is used, the mail flow process stamps the X-MS-Exchange-Organization-AutoForwarded to TRUE. This header is not viewable on a message as the transport\r\nheader firewall removes it. When the message is processed by the Transport service, if the remote domain\r\nspecifically blocks auto-forwarding and the auto-forward header is present and set to TRUE, the message is turfed,\r\nand no NDR is generated. If no form of journaling is present and the deliverToAndForward setting of the mailbox\r\nis set to FALSE, the message is effectively lost.\r\nWhen looking at message tracking we can see that the message failed to reach its destination. The message\r\ndelivery status is NONE and no send events are noted.\r\nimage\r\nUsing the same remote domain, the mailbox is configured with a forwardingAddress instead. The mail contact\r\nused as the forwardingAddress object has an external email address in domain.com. When sending a message to\r\nthe mailbox where forwarding is enabled, the mail is successfully delivered. This is also confirmed by message\r\ntracking.\r\nimage\r\nIn this example, the transport process does not use the X-MS-Exchange-Organization-AutoForwarded but instead\r\nadds the forwarded address as a recipient during a different stage of message processing. As the message traverses\r\nthe transport stack it is not detected as a forwarded message and is therefore allowed to arrive at desired recipient.\r\nUtilizing the forwardingAddress scenario is an excellent way for an administrator to bypass forwarding settings on\r\nremote domains while controlling when message forwarding is allowed.\r\nWe routinely receive requests on how to enable granular message forwarding or only allow specific users to use\r\nauto-forwarding capabilities. Unfortunately, with the forwarding settings being tied to remote domains it is very\r\ndifficult to enable forwarding for only a subset of users or where granular forwarding on messages attributes is\r\ndesired. To allow clients to create auto-forwarding rules would mean the remote domain would have to allow\r\nauto-forwarding for everyone. Administrators can attempt to discover and remove auto-forwarding rules using\r\nGet-InboxRule. \r\nIn my experience, in most scenarios forwarding is disallowed on remote domains and enabling of forwarding is\r\nrestricted to administrator configuration using the forwardingAddress parameter.\r\nAnonymous\r\nJune 10, 2015\r\nhttps://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/timmcmic/2015/06/08/exchange-and-office-365-mail-forwarding-2/\r\nPage 6 of 9\n\nThanks\r\nI did it\r\nI finished reading it...and it was worth it\r\nAnonymous\r\nJune 10, 2015\r\nturbomcp TL;DR\r\nAnonymous\r\nJuly 06, 2015\r\nNicely written.. :)\r\nAnonymous\r\nJuly 31, 2015\r\nHi,\r\nOur IT Manager has left from the company since 4 months, we need to delete its email and create a\r\nforward for its gmail account for the deleted email, how can we do this? is there a way to forward a deleted\r\nemail?\r\nThanks in advance.\r\nRegards.\r\nAnonymous\r\nAugust 04, 2015\r\nGhina: No it is not possible to forward emails after deleting the mailbox. In our environment we disable the\r\nAD account so that no one can login into it as a process and then set the forwarding on the mailbox.\r\nAnonymous\r\nSeptember 02, 2015\r\nI have a working Incoming Rule to Move an incoming message and to Forward the message to an address\r\nat an external domain. The Move works fine but the Forward doesn't. Any ideas?\r\nAnonymous\r\nSeptember 08, 2015\r\nHi Tim, useful articel.\r\nI have just a note. This can cause \"Out of Office\"-issue.\r\nif you setup : Set-Mailbox 2148 -ForwardingAddress sharon@domain.com - works\r\nbut does not work with Set-Mailbox 2148 -ForwardingSMTPAddress sharon@domain.com.\r\nAnonymous\r\nSeptember 20, 2015\r\nCan we forward emails for an inactive office 365 mailbox?\r\nWe want to remove all licenses from mailbox, disable/delete user and place litigation hold on the mailbox\r\nand then forward the emails to another user from this inactive mailbox.\r\nAnonymous\r\nSeptember 22, 2015\r\n@Sameer...\r\nhttps://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/timmcmic/2015/06/08/exchange-and-office-365-mail-forwarding-2/\r\nPage 7 of 9\n\nI had not had a chance to test all scenarios - but I believe that once you delete / remove the license you are\r\neffectively stopping rules based forwarding and the forwarding setting on the mailbox itself.\r\nTIMMCMIC\r\nAnonymous\r\nSeptember 23, 2015\r\nHai, We want to forward mail as conditional (ie from anyone@abcXYZ.com mail alone (not all mails)\r\nforward to another mail id is it possible?\r\nAnonymous\r\nNovember 18, 2015\r\nSecond read I noticed,last part which is,ultra critical to explain\r\nSome,weird stuff I'm seing...\r\nAnonymous\r\nNovember 24, 2015\r\n@Turbomcp...\r\nThanks for reading.\r\nTIMMCMIC\r\nAnonymous\r\nDecember 04, 2015\r\nI believe your last scenario (Autoforwarding and remoteDomains) will help me address an issue were I am\r\ngetting an occasional bounce of a forward from Yahoo, but I want to make sure that understand the\r\napproach. After you create the Domain object, you set the \"forwardingAddress\" on a mailbox and the\r\nmessage is NOT delivered. (Perhaps you meant to say \"forwardingSMTPAddress\".) You then say \"Using\r\nthe same remote domain, the mailbox is configured with a \"forwardingAddress instead\" and this scenario\r\nworks. Could you please clarify how to set this type of forwarding for a user?\r\nAnonymous\r\nDecember 04, 2015\r\n@G Staky:\r\nThanks for catching this - I'll go back and review.\r\nIf using FORWARDINGADDRESS then a remote domain setting change is not required - as this\r\nforwarding overrides those settings.\r\nIf using FORWARDINGSMTPADDRESS then a remote domain setting is required.\r\nTIMMCMIC\r\nAnonymous\r\nDecember 04, 2015\r\nThanks for the quick response and clarification.\r\nhttps://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/timmcmic/2015/06/08/exchange-and-office-365-mail-forwarding-2/\r\nPage 8 of 9\n\nAnonymous\r\nDecember 04, 2015\r\nI really admire Exchange ^_^\r\nAnonymous\r\nDecember 06, 2015\r\n@Ahmed:\r\nAwesome!\r\nTIMMCMIC\r\nAnonymous\r\nDecember 06, 2015\r\n@G Staky:\r\nYou're welcome!\r\nTIMMCMIC\r\nAnonymous\r\nDecember 10, 2015\r\n@TIMMCMIC - great article. Am I understanding correctly? We have a scenario where we wish to allow\r\nusers to control forwarding on their 365 accounts but only to a certain list of domains. Can the Set-RemoteDomain -Identity ExternalDomain -AutoForwardEnabled:$FALSE be used in the affirmative - ie\r\n$TRUE - to allow certain domains only? Will this have the effect we wish of only allowing users to\r\nconfigure forwarding to our agreed list of domains?\r\nAnonymous\r\nApril 01, 2016\r\nExcellent article.You state 'the FROM address shows the original sender.' Is it possible to configure\r\nexchange to set the FROM address to a configured email address?Thanks!\r\nAnonymous\r\nMay 08, 2016\r\nThe from address will always be the primary address of the mailbox or of the recipient sending the\r\nmessage in depending on forwarding.\r\nSource: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/timmcmic/2015/06/08/exchange-and-office-365-mail-forwarding-2/\r\nhttps://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/timmcmic/2015/06/08/exchange-and-office-365-mail-forwarding-2/\r\nPage 9 of 9",
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		"https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/timmcmic/2015/06/08/exchange-and-office-365-mail-forwarding-2/"
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