How to create an email forward or alias in Plesk

This guide will show you how to create/add an email forward in Plesk. The first step is choosing whether you require a forward (redirect) or an alias.

• If you’re forwarding to an external email address (one that does not share the same domain): then you’ll need to create a forward
• If you would like to have multiple addresses using the same domain go to the same place: an alias is what you want! Examples of this below.

Mail Alias Example:

• You have john@yourdomain.com
• You want to also have messages addressed to info@yourdomain.com go to the same account

Solution: add info@yourdomain.com as an alias for john@yourdomain.com

Mail Forward Example (with an additional alias):

• You want to have the mail account john@yourdomain.com forward to johnsmith123@gmail.com
• You want to also have info@yourdomain.com forward to the same Gmail account.

Solution: create a forward for john@yourdomain.com and then add info@yourdomain.com as an alias for john@yourdomain.com — there’s no need to have both of them separately forwarding emails to your external email account.

How to create a mail alias in Plesk

1. Follow this guide to log in to Plesk
2. Once in Plesk choose the Mail tab
3. To set up a mail alias, click on your mail account in the list
4. Choose the Email Aliases tab
5. Either enter in your alias or click on Add email alias then enter it in if you need additional entries.
6. Choose OK

When someone sends a message to the alias, the messages will be delivered to your email account.

How to create a mail forward or redirect in Plesk

To enable a redirect or forward (these are the same thing):

1. Follow this guide to log in to Plesk
2. Choose the “Mail” tab on the left, or click “Email Addresses” under the domain
3. Choose the “Create Email Address” button
4. Fill in the mailname you wish to use and provide a password
5. Choose the Forwarding tab
6. Check the box “Switch on mail forwarding“
7. Check the box beside “Do not deliver copies of forwarded emails to the Plesk mailbox“
8. Supply the email address(es) you wish to forward to in the provided box
9. Click OK.

You’re done!

Important Caveats with Forwarding:

1. In the event you receive too much spam that is then forwarded on to a 3rd party email service it is likely that our server admins will dramatically lower your spam score threshold to prevent spam from being forwarded from our servers. This ensures our server reputation is not damaged because of your forwarding configuration.
2. If you encounter issues with forwarding, like expected messages not arriving at the final destination, you will need to access the email account directly using webmail or a mail app, rather than at your final forwarded destination. You could also switch to using POP retrieval, which is supported by some email providers like Hotmail. Rather than having our server push messages to your preferred email account, an account configured with POP retrieval will instead pull the messages from our servers. Here’s how to configure this with Outlook.com (Hotmail). Note: Google used to support POP retrieval, but has disabled the function in early 2026.
3. We can not provide tech support for mail delivery beyond our servers, as we do not have access to the remote email provider’s servers. We will support incoming mail through to the point where your configured forward shows it leaving our servers. Everything beyond that will be up to the company providing email service at the final destination email address.

Troubleshooting Creating a Forward

If Plesk provides an error like “emails outside of the domain need to be entered by an administrator” this occurs because you’re logged in as the mail account user and it hasn’t been provided access to make this change. You must log in to Plesk as the owner of the account to have access to create this type of forward. If you are not the owner of the account you will need to ask the owner to do this for you.