Email forwarding generically refers to the operation of re-sending an email message delivered to one email address to one or more different email addresses.

The term forwarding, used for mail since long before electronic communications, has no specific technical meaning, but it implies that the email has been moved "forward" to a new destination.

Email forwarding can also redirect mail going to a certain address and send it to one or more other addresses. Vice versa, email items going to several different addresses can converge via forwarding to end up in a single address in-box.

Email users and administrators of email systems use the same term when speaking of both server-based and client-based forwarding.