Overview
A forward-only email address is an email address that does not have an active mailbox. This is because this user’s primary function is to forward all emails sent to it to another email user. The message will only be stored on the user that is set to receive the forwarded email.
DO NOT set an active email address to a forward-only address. This will delete all emails previously saved under this address.
Prerequisites
You must have an active hosting plan, or a paid email add-on plan to use email.
All hosting plans except Shared Starter offer email at no cost.
While Shared Starter hosting plans and domain registration-only accounts do not include email, you can add a paid email plan onto your account that includes up to 5 email addresses. View the following article for more information:
Creating a mail forward
- Visit the Manage Email page in your panel.
- Click the Create New Email Address button.
- Scroll down to the Forward Only section.
- Email Address
- Enter your desired alias to the left of the “@” symbol. Select the domain or subdomain the user will be created under to the right of the “@” symbol.
- List all email addresses to forward to, one per line
- Enter the email address or addresses you wish to have this user forward to. You can create up to 10 forwards per email address. Make sure you have each email address to forward to set up on its own line within the empty field.
There are three mail hosting providers DreamHost does not allow forwarding to: Comcast, AOL, and Verizon. When attempting to set up a forward to either of these hosts, you will receive the following error message (in red):
- Click the Forward to These Addresses! button to create the forwarding.
Forward-only email addresses are email addresses that do not have an active mailbox because these users are meant to forward all emails sent to it to another email address.
Description of fields in the forward-only email page
Forwarding-Only Addresses: In this column, you will only see the email address of the forwarding user because there is no active mailbox to show any details for.
Forwards to: This column will show the email address of the user that will receive the messages sent to this forwarding user. You can add more than one if you’d like.
Actions: This column has two options for each user listed: Edit and Delete.
- Edit: The edit button takes you to another page where you can make changes to your forward address.
- Delete: Clicking this button deletes the user, but a pop-up window displays prompting you to verify this request first with the message:
-
Really delete forwarduser@example.com? (There is no email stored with it.)
- Clicking “OK” will delete the user and the mailbox for that user. This will require a few minutes, but once this is done, you will no longer see that user listed on the Manage Email page for that domain.
Changing an existing email to forward-only
Remove email forwarding
There are two options to remove email forwarding:
- Change 'forwarding' to a fully hosted email or garbage email.
- Delete the forward address.
To remove email forwarding from an address:
- Visit the Manage Email page in your panel.
- To the right of the forward address are two buttons, Edit and Delete.
- Click either button depending on what you'd like to do with the address.
