Forwarding sends new mail for one of your addresses on to another inbox, such as a personal Gmail, while imado keeps its own copy. Nothing goes until someone at the other address agrees by clicking a link, and either side can stop it at any time.
Who can set it up
A project admin who reads the mailbox. Everyone else who reads the mailbox is told by email when a forward is added, and sees it in Mail → Settings → This mailbox, with who added it, so nobody can forward a shared mailbox quietly.
If the person already reads mail in this project, give them access to the mailbox instead, and they read the same mail without a copy being sent anywhere. An address on another imado project can be forwarded to like any other, but mail forwarded there stays there: imado never forwards a forward a second time.
Add a forward
- In Setup, open the project's Addresses and then the mailbox.
- Under Forwarding, press Forward mail.
- Choose which of the mailbox's addresses to forward, type the address it should also go to, and press Send link.
We email that address a link, which works for seven days. Forwarding starts when someone there opens it and presses Start receiving. Until then, Setup shows when the link was sent, and you can send a new one, at most once an hour, if the first went astray.
If they press This wasn't me instead, nothing is sent there, and no address on your domain can ask that address again for 30 days.
If the link comes back to the address being forwarded, Setup marks the forward Loops back. Either the other inbox sends its mail back, which would loop, or someone there forwarded the link to ask about it. Turn off any forwarding back on their side, then send a new link.
What is forwarded
New mail that arrives for that address, from the moment forwarding starts. Some mail is never forwarded, so nobody's inbox fills with mail they would not want:
- mail that went to Spam, and mail whose spam or virus scan did not come back clean, even when it stayed in your Inbox
- mail that fails the sender's own authentication checks
- automatic mail: out-of-office replies, bounces and other messages a program sent
- mail from the forwarded address itself, which is how a loop starts, and mail from an address you forward to, which is not sent back to that address
- very large messages, and messages that have already passed through many servers
- the rare message that cannot be passed on exactly as it was written, such as one with a line too long for mail to carry
Mail that was already in the mailbox stays where it is. Forwarding never moves, deletes or marks anything in imado.
How it arrives
The person receives the sender's message exactly as it was written, with its pictures and attachments. It comes from your imado address with the sender's address shown beside it, and with their name too when their domain vouches for it. Pressing Reply writes to the original sender, not to you.
Forwarded mail counts toward your account's daily sending, like a message you write. Forwards stop for the day before that limit is reached, so there is always room left for your own replies. Fair use lists the numbers.
Stop forwarding
- From imado. In the mailbox's Forwarding, open the forward's menu and press Stop forwarding. It stops at once; starting again needs a new link.
- From the other inbox. Every forward carries a one-click unsubscribe, which most mail apps show as Unsubscribe next to the sender. The email sent when forwarding started has the same link, for mail apps that hide the button. Stopping from there also keeps every address on your domain from asking that address again for 30 days, and everyone who reads the mailbox is told.
When forwarding pauses
imado pauses a forward by itself rather than let mail go somewhere it should not. Setup says why, and what starts it again:
- The mail bounced, or someone at the other address marked a forward as spam. It starts again only when someone there confirms with a new link.
- Forwarded mail came back, or more mail arrived in an hour than may be forwarded. Fix whatever sends the mail back, then press Resume. Forwarding picks up with the next message.
The project's admins who read the mailbox are emailed when a forward pauses, at most once a day for each forward, never once per message. They are also emailed when forwards stop for the day at the sending limit, at most once a day for each forward, and at most once a day when copies of your own mail keep coming back.