cPanel mail accounts and mail forwarders

In cPanel web hosting you may create mail addresses in two ways: mail accounts; and mail forwarders. Users are often unclear as to how to use these functions, so let’s look at each in detail.

A cPanel mail account receives and stores mail. A mail account may be thought of as a mailbox, holding the incoming mail on your web server until the user views or deletes it.

A cPanel mail forwarder forwards incoming mail to some other specified destination, commonly to some outside address. The mail is not retained on your web server.

Create a mail account

To create a new mail account in cPanel, choose the “Email Accounts” function. Enter the e-mail user (which will of course be “@” the domain of the cPanel you’re logged into), a password, and the mailbox quota (maximum size) in MB. You may instead choose “unlimited” for mailbox size, but be careful with this. If you have a friend such as mine who repeatedly sends multiple 40 MB or 50 MB graphics and video files, you could easily reach the limit of a small hosting account.

Create a mail forwarder

To create a cPanel mail forwarder, use the “Forwarders” function and click the “Add Forwarder” button. In the “Address to Forward” field, enter the mail user name “@” the domain of the cPanel you’re logged into. This creates that as a valid address on the server, even though it does not exist as a mailbox. In the “Forward to email address” field, enter the desired target or destination to which you want the mail forwarded.

As I wrote in an earlier article, do not forward to AOL, and be careful about forwarding to certain other domains which may block your mail as spam.

Forward mail to multiple targets

If you want to forward mail from one address to multiple targets, simply create multiple forwarders. e.g. To forward email for larry@domain.com to moe@isp.com and curly@company.net, first create one forwarder:
larry@domain.com -> moe@isp.com

and then create another forwarder:
larry@domain.com -> curly@company.net

All incoming mail addressed to larry@domain.com will be forwarded twice, to moe@isp.com and curly@company.net.

Combine mail account and mail forwarder

You may combine the two features. Create a mail account and a forwarder for the same address, and you will both store received mail on the server and also forward a copy to the specified other address. Forwarding is actually “store and forward” if the address also exists as a mail account.

cPanel web hosting includes a variety of tools to create and manage your domain’s email. You should find everything necessary to meet the needs of your mail users.