As a Google Workspace admin, you can choose to let people in your organization set up forwarding in their own Gmail account. They might want to forward their mail to their personal email account, or to another colleague while they go on vacation. To allow this, turn on automatic forwarding in your Google Admin console.
To use this option, senders and recipients must have a Google Workspace license because the forwarded messages pass through their Gmail account.
Step 1: Turn on automatic forwarding for your organization
You can turn this option on or off in your Google Admin console. It’s on by default. When this setting is off, the forwarding option isn't available in Gmail settings.
Before you begin: If you need to set up a department or team for this setting, go to Add an organizational unit.
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Sign in to your Google Admin console.
Sign in using your administrator account (does not end in @gmail.com).
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In the Admin console, go to Menu
Apps
Google Workspace
- (Optional) To apply the setting to a department or team, at the side, select an organizational unit. Show me how
- Click Automatic forwarding
- Click Save. Or, you might click Override for an organizational unit.
To later restore the inherited value, click Inherit.
Step 2: Users can set up automatic forwarding
When automatic forwarding is on, people in your organization can set up forwarding for their Gmail account in their own Gmail settings. This method lets users control and change where their messages are forwarded. They can set up only one forwarding address.
When new messages are forwarded, messages from spam won't be included. To forward only certain types of messages, your users can create filters in their Gmail account.
Steps for users
- On your computer, open Gmail.
- Sign in to the account where you want to forward messages from.
- In the top right, click Settings
See all settings.
- Click the Forwarding and POP/IMAP or Forwarding tab.
- In the "Forwarding" section, click Add a forwarding address.
- Enter the email address you want to forward messages to.
- Click Next
- A verification message is sent to the forwarding email address.
- In the other email account, click the verification link in the message.
- Return to the "Settings" page in Gmail.
- Refresh your browser.
- Click the Forwarding and POP/IMAP or Forwarding tab.
- In the "Forwarding" section, select Forward a copy of incoming mail to.
- Choose what you want to happen with the Gmail copy of your emails.
- It’s recommended you select Keep Gmail's copy in the Inbox.
- At the bottom of the page, click Save Changes.
See all settings. Turn off automatic forwarding
- On your computer, open Gmail.
- Sign in to the account that's forwarding your emails.
- In the top right, click Settings
- Click the Forwarding and POP/IMAP or Forwarding tab.
- In the "Forwarding" section, click Disable forwarding.
- At the bottom, click Save Changes.
Next steps
To check messages forwarded by people in your organization, use Email Log Search.
