How to Forward All Incoming or Outgoing Emails in Google Workspace

Quick and easy-to-follow guide for Google Workspace administrators

You can automatically forward a copy of all (or some) Google Workspace users’ incoming or outgoing emails to another recipient.

This setup acts as a BCC does, so the original recipient won’t be aware of this forwarding rule.

How to forward a copy of all incoming or outgoing mail in Google Workspace step-by-step with images

Step 1

In the Admin console at https://admin.google.com, click the Apps icon.

Step 2

Select Google Workspace.

Step 3

Click Gmail. Make sure not to check the box to the left; just click the service.

Step 4

Select Routing.

Step 5

Under Organizational Units, select the OU with the users whose settings you want to update. The same updates will apply to all sub-OUs under the OU you choose.

By default, if you don’t select an OU, you will add your setting to the top OU, named after your domain. This way, you will apply changes to all users in your account.

You can search for an OU to find it faster if you have a large OU structure.

If you’re not familiar with OUs, click here.

Step 6

To the right of the Routing setting, click CONFIGURE.

If you already have existing Routing rules in place, click ADD ANOTHER RULE instead.

Step 7

First, on top, enter a short description of what you’re setting up.

Next, under 1. Email messages to affect, you select which messages to auto-bcc.

If you want to forward only incoming messages, check these two boxes:

Inbound: emails coming in from external people outside the domain.

Internal – receiving: emails received internally, from other users in the Google Workspace account.

Step 8

If you want to forward only outgoing messages, check only these two boxes:

Outbound: emails going out from this domain to external people.

Internal – sending: emails sent internally, to other users in the Google Workspace account.

If you want to forward all incoming and outgoing emails, check all boxes.

Step 9

To continue specifying under what conditions the setting will be applied, scroll to the bottom and click Show options.

Step 10

A. Address lists: check the box to add a list of email addresses and domains. Then you can choose to Bypass this setting for anyone in the list or Only apply it to those in the list.

If you already have a list created for this purpose, click Use existing list. Otherwise, click Create or edit list, and follow the steps in this article. After you set it up, go back here to select it.

Step 11

If you choose the Use existing list option, you’ll see a list of all your lists. Check the box for each one you want to add to your setting.

Step 12

B. Account types to affect:

Users
Groups
Unrecognized (non-existent in your Google Workspace as a user, group, or alias)

If one of these boxes is unchecked, its type of email address will not be affected by the setting.

For example, you may set up a routing rule that should apply to all users but not groups. In this case, keep the Groups box unchecked.

Step 13

C. Envelope filter allows you to apply this rule only when specific email addresses are the senders or recipients.

For example, you only want to have the routing work when the sender is [email protected] Then you should check the square ‘Only affect specific envelope senders’ and type the email address [email protected] under Single email address.

You can also set the envelope filter for a group in your domain or enter a regexp. Learn more about regexp here.

Step 14

If you only want to auto-bcc emails to a specific recipient, check the Only affect specific envelope recipients box and type the email address below, under Single email address.

Step 15

Add more recipients adds extra recipients to the email. This acts similar to a BCC, so the sender and recipients of the message won’t know about the additional recipients you have added.

Click ADD to add an extra recipient.

Step 16

Leave it on Basic, then type the email address and click SAVE. Repeat this step to add more recipients.

Step 17

Click SAVE at the bottom when you are ready to add the setting.

Step 18

This is an example of what it looks like in the settings list. You can come back to this page at any time and click Edit to update the setting, Disable to turn it off temporarily, or Delete to remove it permanently.

Please note that it may take up to 24 hours to start working.