Written by T.C. | Posted in Computers and Technology

I’ve been on the Internet since 1991. That’s before the Web even existed. My first connection online was using a 2400 baud dial-up modem on a computer with a 40 MB hard drive. I used Gopher (precursor to the Web) to connect through the University (of Wisconsin-Madison) to a computer in Italy. I was at home and I ran upstairs to tell my mom that I connected to a computer in Italy. She instantly was worried about a big phone bill but I explained how I dialed a local number and the connection was through the Internet. My first email address was through the UW, also. I had some classes that were using email to communicate. And I remember one class at the end of my college days where they showed us how to use the Web, which was this new thing out there. So yeah, not only am I feeling old but I’ve seen things really develop.

Since I’ve been using the Internet so long, I was kind of surprised to learn about a function available in email that I never used before. I remember seeing it in Outlook a long time ago but didn’t know what it was for or had it explained to me. I think I was reading one of my Mac magazines last week and found an explanation of how to do an email redirect.

How Email Redirecting Works

It’s similar to a forward but different. Let’s say you get an email that was not intended for you. You can redirect that email to the right person and then you’re basically taken out of the email thread. It’s as if the person that sent it to you sent it to where it was supposed to go. They might see your name in it but if they reply to it, then it will not go to you but to the original sender. This saves a lot of work and makes things work a lot cleaner.

You can find this feature in email programs like Outlook (Exchange Server) and Apple Mail. You won’t find this feature if you use webmail, like Gmail. At least not yet – maybe some are offering it. I don’t know why they don’t provide it but it’s not there.

I’ve heard it said that the original email cannot be modified. This might be an Outlook thing and it might have changed. It would make sense that you can’t do this. With Apple Mail, I know you can modify the original email. What I see in Apple Mail is that “Resent-From:” and “Resent-To” fields are added.

Here are some good links explaining email redirects:

• Redirect Email Messages (email.about.com)
• Email Redirect for Microsoft Outlook (www.office-addins.com)
• Automatically forward messages to another e-mail account (office.microsoft.com)

Bouncing Email

In Apple Mail, there’s also a feature called “Bounce” that lets you bounce an email. This will discourage someone (like a spammer) from sending email to that account. You can make it look like your address does not exist anymore. Pretty cool. Here’s more info on this:

Spam & Junk Mail in Apple Mail (www.freeemailtutorials.com)

Apple Mail can emulate the behavior of a bounced back email: to bounce back an email to its sender, control-click/right-click on the junk email, and choose “Bounce”. The sender’s mail server will receive -and relay- an undeliverable failure notice.

Happy emailing!

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