How do I choose whether to use a mailbox or a forwarding address?

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Confused about whether to choose an e-mail mailbox or a forwarding address when you create a new address?

Both allow you to create new addresses like “sales@example.com” and “yourname@example.com”, but there are a number of differences. The information below will help you decide which to use.

Forwarding addresses

A forwarding address is simpler to use than a mailbox. It allows you to forward incoming mail to a different address you already have, and you don't have to set up any new accounts in your mail program.

However, forwarding addresses have several drawbacks:

  1. Messages forwarded to another address will be mixed with other messages sent directly to that address.
  2. If you reply to a message, the recipient will see the address of the other mailbox as the "From" address.
  3. You can't read forwarded mail using our Webmail system (at least, not using the original address).
  4. Forwarding may be less reliable if the company handling the destination address has problems.
  5. Forwarding makes our spam filters less accurate, because we can't tell who you normally send e-mail to.

E-mail mailboxes

If these drawbacks bother you, you should use a mailbox instead. This solves the problems of forwarding addresses:

  1. A mailbox stores your mail separately on our servers. Your mail won't be mixed with mail at other addresses.
  2. Your mail program (or Webmail) will insert the correct "From" address when you reply to a message.
  3. The messages can be read using our Webmail system.
  4. Since the messages stay on our servers, problems at other companies won't make your e-mail less reliable.
  5. Our systems know who you send outgoing mail to and make sure the replies will never be blocked as "spam".

Using both

If you prefer, you can set up a single address as both a forwarding address and a mailbox.