Understanding limitations on email forwarding
Last Updated: September 28, 2023
Using free email forwarding through Name.com is a great way to receive mail via a custom mask created with an existing domain. However, there are a few limitations on this service that you should keep in mind before using it:
- Email forwarding won’t work if you have a mail product set up on the domain name. Mail for your domain name can only be sent to one place. So, if you have a mail product on your domain name (like Name.com email or email through your hosting account), you will need to see if that product supports forwarding and set up any forwards you would like there.
- Forwarding does not allow you to customize spam settings. All mail you receive will be forwarded to the email address you specify, spam and all. If the email you are forwarding to has spam settings, it may catch some spam content, but keep in mind that some could slip through.
- Forwarding will only deliver attachments up to 10MB. Any attachments larger than that will fail.
- Wildcard forwarding is not supported. Some people want to set up a wildcard forward, so that any email sent to their domain name—regardless of what is put before the @ sign—is delivered to the email address they specify. Unfortunately, our system does not support this.
- You cannot forward to an email address that is forwarding to another email address. If you do this, the email will fail somewhere along the way.
- You cannot test the forward by sending from the email address that the forward is forwarding to. Again, doing this will also cause the email to fail.
- Our email forwarding does not support any catch-all functionality.
- There are no options to forward one email address to multiple destinations.
Another limitation you should keep in mind is that you will not have an inbox for these forwarded emails; they will only be found in the email address they are forwarded to. Also, when you reply it will show the sending address as the email that you have forwarded to rather than the mask you created.