How to Forward Sent Mail

Forward a sent email.

With most email services, messages sent via your email account are typically stored in a "Sent" email folder. Within this folder, you can delete, read and forward these sent messages. Forward an email you already sent to share the original message you wrote with other recipients.

Things You'll Need

• Email account

Instructions

1. Open your email account.

2. Click on your "Sent items" folder. This brings up a list of all the email messages you've recently sent.

3. Select the sent email message you'd like to forward. Depending on your email program, you might need to double-click on the email to open it up in order to forward it.

4. Press the "Forward" button. Typically, this button is located on the message's menu bar or you can access this function from the main toolbar.

5. Type in the recipient's email address (or addresses) in the "To:" field.

6. Type text in the email message body, if desired. The email program places the original text below any new text you type, sometimes noted with ">" characters.

7. Click "Send" to forward the email to the recipient(s).

Tips & Warnings

• A "FW:" precedes the subject line of any forwarded sent email message. Change the subject line by typing in a new subject before sending, if desired.

• If you are forwarding the sent message to many email addresses, consider using the blind carbon copy feature (BCC). Add your email address to the "To:" field and place all other recipients' email addresses in the BCC: field. This protects the privacy of other recipients' email addresses, as no one will be able to see who else received the message.

• Some email services only store sent emails for a specified amount of time before the message deletes from the server. If you cannot find the message you'd like to forward, it's possible your email service purged the email.

References

• Netmanners: Email Etiquette