Auto Delete Forwarded Emails in cPanel Web Host
In web hosting account that are using cPanel web hosting control panel, users can create as many email accounts as they like with different aliases, and then forward the mails received to any address, inside or outside of domain. There are two ways to do email forwarding, that’s by Default Email Account which is not recommended as it acts as Catch All email account, where any email messages sent to an non-existence account on domain will automatically forward to this address, including all spam. Another way is by adding forwards for email address.
When a forwarder is added for a domain email address, all email received will be forwarded to the specified email address. However, if users have created an email account first before setting up a forwarder, the forwarder may not function properly and worse, the email account will still receive a copy of the email message, wasting precious storage space on the hosting server. The emails stored won’t be auto deleted or removed.
The workaround to this issue so that the emails as are ‘auto delete’ is to setup a forwarder without creating any email account. For example, if you want to forward all email messages that going to webmaster@domain.com to another email address, do not create an email account for webmaster@domain.com. When a forwarder is setup, it will handle the forwarding process properly, even though no email account for it exists.
How to add an email forwarder:
- Click on Forwarders.
- Click on Add Forwarder.
- Then type the email address with the intended account name in the first column, and the destination forwarding email address that you want the mail forwarded to in the second field. The email address can be any, including external email address such as gmail, hotmail and etc. In the case the emails are been forwarded to another email on domain, care has to be taken so that the forwarding does not accidentally create an indefinite loop that can cause all email accounts to stop working on your domain.
- Click on Add Forward button and the new forwarder will be activated immediately, without leaving any emails on the server, which is similar to auto deletion of mails from email accounts.
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November 10th, 2009 04:22
Great advice! However, will users still be able to check their email via a web browser when they are on the road?
September 24th, 2009 02:51
This is why I love blogs. Wouldn’t have know this otherwise.
November 24th, 2008 15:00
Great tip, thanks. Will I be able to reply to the email the address I have forwarded?
Dave
September 12th, 2008 03:38
Note, if you have a forwarder and an email account for the same address, this will not cause either to malfunction. In fact, I use this setup for my company email. This allows me to check it like a normal account, but any mail that is not caught by my mail filters is also forwarded to my blackberry.
@Gaurav: If you are a reseller or root user, you can access any client’s cPanel interface to manage their forwarders for them. At this time, we do not offer any automatic deletion features for email. However, I believe you may find inspiration on how to build such a script on our community forums at forums.cPanel.net
September 11th, 2008 18:29
This is the far most easiest way to handle the forwarder and have NO copy on the server.Howecver, am looking for a way wherein once messages are forwarded they are automatically deleted from server say after 5 days. Am a webdevelopment startup and i think offering just a forwarder to my clients is not a good idea as they would be using only a 3rd party email like gmail to do everything ..however if they loose there password for that account what tontrol could i have on the forwarder …is there anyway i can offer forwarder + email account(which automatically deletes mails after specific time to take care of server space)
Thanks Gaurav
June 25th, 2008 06:53
Thank you!!
That was useful information
February 28th, 2008 21:33
thanks!
February 11th, 2008 21:22
Thanks for the tip!
Would have never thought of that.
April 29th, 2007 15:11
Very useful!!