What forwarding does

A forwarding rule copies mail arriving at one of your mailboxes out to an external address -- one on a domain you don't host with Mila. It's the right tool when the destination is someone else's inbox entirely: a personal account, a client's address, or a domain hosted elsewhere. If you instead want to route mail between addresses that both live on your own domain, use an alias or a catch-all instead -- see Aliases & catch-all.

Setting one up

From Domain > Mailboxes > [mailbox] > Forwarding, add the destination address you want mail copied to. A single mailbox can have up to 25 forwarding rules active at once, so splitting mail across several external inboxes is supported if you need it.

Why confirmation is required

A new forwarding rule doesn't send anything right away. Mila emails a confirmation link to the destination address itself, and forwarding only starts once someone with access to that inbox clicks it. This exists so a forwarding rule can't be used to quietly redirect a copy of someone's mail to an address they don't control -- the owner of the destination has to actively accept it first.

Keeping a copy

By default, forwarding also keeps a copy of each message in the original mailbox, so mail is both readable through Mila and delivered to the forwarding address. Turn that off if you'd rather have the mailbox act as a pure redirect with nothing retained locally -- most setups leave it on.

Expiring a forwarding rule

Forwarding rules can be given an expiration date, which is useful for something meant to be temporary, like covering a transition period while a team member is out or a domain is being handed off. You can choose whether an expired rule is simply turned off (and can be re-enabled later) or deleted outright.