Forward Received Emails

Create forwarding rules from the Receiving dashboard or POST /api/receiving/forwarding-rules. A rule belongs to one receiving route and contains one or more destination addresses. When a received email matches that route, OpenSend preserves the original received_emails row and creates a separate forwarding attempt/result.

Forwarded messages are recomposed as outbound emails through the existing send queue boundary:

• from is the matched route target address, such as support@inbound.example.com.
• reply_to points at the original inbound sender.
• subject is prefixed with Fwd: unless it already starts with a forward prefix.
• Audit headers identify the original received email ID and forwarding rule ID.
• Stored inbound attachments remain on the received email row; forwarding uses the configured storage download boundary when attachments are available.

Safety states

Forwarding rules can be active, disabled, or invalid.

• Active rules queue forwarding attempts for matching inbound messages.
• Disabled rules do not forward, but matching messages still create visible skipped attempts.
• Invalid rules are not silently ignored; matching messages create skipped attempts with the invalid reason.

OpenSend blocks active rules that would forward back into the same receiving domain or matched receiving address. This loop-prevention guard protects exact routes, aliases, and catch-all routes from recursively re-entering the same inbound pipeline.

Visibility

The Receiving dashboard shows each route's forwarding destinations, rule status, and latest forwarding attempt. The forwarding rules API returns the same latest-attempt summary for API clients.