How to set up email forwarders in cPanel
Email forwarders automatically redirect mail from one address to another. Set up, manage, and troubleshoot email forwarders in cPanel-including catch-all add...
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An email forwarder automatically copies or redirects incoming mail from one address to another. For example, forwarding info@yourdomain.com to your personal Gmail lets you receive mail sent to your domain without checking a separate inbox.
What is an email forwarder?
| Type | How it works |
|---|---|
| Standard forwarder | Forwards copies of mail to a specific address. You can forward to multiple addresses or to your own domain's mailbox. |
| Catch-all | Catches all email sent to non-existent addresses at your domain. Mail to anything@yourdomain.com is delivered to the catch-all address. |
| Discard (spam) | Silently drops email without delivering or bouncing it. Use only on addresses you've publicly decommissioned. |
Create a forwarder
- Log in to cPanel
- Go to Email → Forwarders
- Click Add Forwarder
- In Address to Forward, enter the local part (e.g.,
infoforinfo@yourdomain.com) - Select the domain from the dropdown
- Under Destination, choose where to forward: an email address or a system account
- Click Add Forwarder
The forwarder is active immediately. Mail sent to the source address will be forwarded to the destination going forward.
A forwarder does not store email-it only passes it along. If you also want to keep a copy of mail in a cPanel mailbox, create a regular email account AND a forwarder from the same address pointing externally.
Catch-all forwarder
- In Email → Forwarders, click the Email Routing tab
- Or go directly to Email → Default Address
- Set the default address to forward to a specific mailbox, or set it to discard/fail
Spammers often guess email addresses at random. A catch-all address receives all of this spam. Use with caution-consider setting the default address to "fail with error" instead, which bounces mail to invalid addresses and doesn't attract spam.
Manage and delete forwarders
All existing forwarders are listed in Email → Forwarders. Click Delete next to any forwarder to remove it. Deletion takes effect immediately-mail will no longer be forwarded from that address.
Troubleshooting forwarders
- Mail not arriving at destination-check if the destination email address is valid and not full. Also check your spam folder at the destination.
- Forwarded mail going to spam-when mail is forwarded, it may fail SPF checks at the destination because it now comes from UnderHost's IP, not the original sender. Use SRS (Sender Rewriting Scheme) if your server supports it, or use Google Workspace's "Receive mail" setting to whitelist the forwarding server.
- Forwarder doesn't appear in the list-try logging out and back into cPanel, or check that you selected the correct domain.
Related: How to set up email accounts in cPanel | Email aliases and multiple addresses in cPanel | Email not sending-troubleshooting outgoing email | Managing email storage quotas in cPanel
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