In the age of digital communication, email has become an integral part of people's daily lives. As email becomes more common, the ways to operate email are becoming more diverse. Among these operations, "forwarding" and "resending" are often confused, but there is a subtle but important difference between them.
In simple terms, email forwarding refers to resending previously received email to one or more different email addresses. The term, which was used in the email world long before the age of electronic communications, has an unclear technical meaning, but it implies that an email is "forwarded" to a new destination.
Email forwarding can redirect mail from a specific address to another address, or vice versa, and can merge mail from multiple destinations into a single inbox.
Server-side forwarding is the process of forwarding email from one address to another via an email server. The domain name, the part of the email address to the right of the "@" symbol, defines the destination server. These servers can be a primary server or a backup server. The former can deliver emails to user mailboxes and may also forward them, while the backup server simply forwards the emails without changing any part.
Server-side forwarding helps ensure that mail for a role address (such as info or sales) is delivered to the correct individual currently holding that position.
When forwarding a message, only the enclosing recipients of the message are changed, but the From field of the message remains unchanged. Resending usually involves rewriting the From field. This distinction is especially evident when dealing with email lists, which often use resending methods to avoid sending bounce returns to the original sender.
In email forwarding, the original sender's information may change in different types of forwarding, which makes it difficult to distinguish pure email forwarding from resending.
According to RFC 821 (proposed in 1982), forwarding paths for email are allowed. With the introduction of MX records, source routing has become unnecessary and was recommended in 1989 by RFC 1123 only as a backwards-compatible measure. Since then, simple email forwarding has gradually become the main behavior pattern.
In addition to server-side forwarding, clients can also perform automatic or manual forwarding. Automatic forwarding is mainly done by non-interactive clients, maintaining the same email identity. Manual forwarding requires users to manually select the forwarded message in their email client and can choose to include the original attachments or headers.
Forwarding technology within modern email services not only simplifies email management, but also improves communication efficiency. With the development of Internet technology, the security and reliability of email forwarding have become increasingly important, but due to the problem of spam, many experts recommend avoiding cross-domain email forwarding when possible.
As email has evolved, the way forwarding and resending are used has continued to evolve, and understanding the difference is critical for every user. So, in your daily email exchanges, have you ever thought about how you should effectively use these tools to keep communications clear and smooth?