How can I automatically forward an e-mail and change sender?

Question

I would like to set up an e-mail address that would forward all incoming e-mails and change the sender.

Example: A random person sends mail to an account that I set up:

From: [e-mail]
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Test message
Hi!

This account will then automatically forward it to another address with itself as a sender:

From: [e-mail]
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Test message
Hi!

I am looking for some kind of service that will let me do this, since I do not have an available server to configure. I tried playing around with forward settings in hotmail, gmail, etc. but I cannot make it change the sender address.

Answer 1

I use E4ward for that purpose. E4ward allocates aliases, which look like [e-mail]. I give out these aliases, and E4ward forwards emails sent to them to my real email address, but with a tricked return address that I can use to respond such that my answer would seem to come from the alias.

The advantage in that kind of service is that I'm less exposed to spam, and when I do receive an unsolicited email I know exactly who is to blame.

I have tried a dozen such services before settling on E4ward as the best. I used a free account for a couple of months, and was so satisfied that I paid the $10 yearly subscription. Their service is very complete, missing only the feature of auto-expiring aliases, which I don't need.

Read this article for a description E4ward.com - Disposable Email Address Service:

E4ward.com is a down-to-earth and very useful disposable email service that makes it easy to prevent spam to your real email address with easily erasable aliases. You can use your own domain with E4ward.com, but auto-expiring aliases are not offered.

• E4ward.com lets you set up unlimited disposable email addresses.
• You can set up custom aliases or use random characters to make guessing more difficult.
• Each E4ward.com can have a memo to help you remember which site or use
  it was set up for.
• E4ward.com lets you create aliases for multiple real email addresses.
• You can use aliases at your own domain name with E4ward.com.
• E4ward.com protects your real address even in replies by routing them through its servers.

Answer 2

I think you need to use something like procmail for this. I doubt you can do it with any free webmail client.

Answer 3

I think you have a few options:

1. Sign on with a web hosting company which gives you SSH access and the ability to tweak your own mail settings. Then set up procmail to do this. My host does this for $10/month.

2. Use a local mail client to do this. At the moment I have a rule set up in my University Mail program (a Web version of Outlook, connected to their Exchange server) to do just what you're asking. (In fact I wish I could do real forwarding where it looks like the email actually came from its original recipient, but that client won't allow it.) If you do this, all the email will be downloaded and then resent.

3. Talk to an email forwarding service (like pobox.com), explain your case, and see what they can do for you. It's a pretty simple request, which they may not offer as a stock option simply because most people want their forwarded mail to show the original sender.

Answer 4

Try using a service such as Fastmail that allows custom Sieve scripts. Refer to this reference:

http://www.fastmail.fm/help/managing_email_forwarding_redirecting.html

Answer 5

I faced a similar problem and used Google Apps Script for Gmail to fix it. I augmented Pascal Richter's script. For the script to work, I made a new Gmail account, set up a filter called 'Pics' that grabs every email with an attachment. The script checks the Label every minute and forwards all of the messages to Tumblr. To get it to work for you, you'll have to:

• Either use the label name Pics or update the labelName in the script
• Update the [e-mail] address in this script to your custom email address
• Add a trigger so that this script runs with whatever frequency you'd like

Here's the code:

// SCRIPT BEGIN =============================
// Forwards emails with attachments to Tumblr
// Only emails in the Label labelName will get forwarded
// You should set up a trigger so that this gets run regularly

var labelName = "Pics";

function Send_Gmail_Attachments_To_Tumblr() {
initLabels();
var threads = getThreads();
var attachments = getAttachments(threads);
sendAttachments(attachments);
removeThreadsFromLabel(threads);}

// helper functions 

function getThreads(){
return getGmailLabel().getThreads();}

function getMessages(threads){
var res = new Array();
var c = 0;
for(var i in threads){
var messages = threads[i].getMessages();
for(var a in messages){
res[c++]=messages[a];}
}
return res;}

function getAttachments(threads){
var res = new Array();
var messages = getMessages(threads);
for(var i in messages){
var attachments = messages[i].getAttachments();
for(var a in attachments){
//Eliminate attachments with same name
res[attachments[a].getName()]=attachments[a];}
}
return res;}

function removeThreadsFromLabel(threads){
getGmailLabel().removeFromThreads(threads);}

function sendAttachments(attachments){
for(var n in attachments){
sendAttachment(attachments[n])}
}

function sendAttachment(blob){
return MailApp.sendEmail("[e-mail]","","",{attachments: [blob]});}

function getGmailLabel(){
return GmailApp.getUserLabelByName(labelName);}

function initLabels(){
var label = null;

try{
label = getGmailLabel();
}catch(e){
Logger.log(e.getCause());}

if(!label){
GmailApp.createLabel(labelName);}
}

// SCRIPT END =============================

My apologies if the formatting is all messed up here. I'm new to this.

Answer 6

In case anyone is still looking for an answer to this I looked everywhere and couldn't find a solution that didn't involve running Microsoft Outlook & leaving your computer on 24/7.

I've figured out a way to do it via IFTTT & Gmail, visit the App at the following URL: https://ifttt.com/applets/JDHcT76p-automatically-forward-all-emails-from-a-specific-email-address-hide-original-sender-s-email .

1. Sign up with the email address that is currently receiving the emails you want to be forwarded (this has to be a Gmail account, if your account is not a Gmail account you may be able to create a Gmail account & automatically forward all emails to that address from your current provider)

2. Put the email address of the person who is sending you the emails

3. Put the email address of the person who is going to be receiving the emails

You're good to go, it hides the original senders email address & shows your email, the same subject & body message.

Answer 7

If I understood you correctly, then there is a much easier way - you can simply add rules to Outlook:

http://www.technipages.com/automatically-forward-email-in-outlook-2007.html