OpenHelm Mail · Forwarding
Forwarding for a domain you own
Point one address, or every address, at the mailbox you already read. The original message is re-sent byte for byte from a signed sender, so it arrives looking like what it is.
The situation.
You own a domain and want hello@ to reach your normal inbox. Most forwarders break SPF and DKIM on the way, so forwarded mail lands in spam, and bounces disappear into a sender you cannot see.
How it works.
One address or all of them
Forward a single alias, or every address on a domain with a catch-all. Several routes can match the same message and all of them fire.
Real SRS, not a stub
The original message is re-sent unchanged from an HMAC-signed SRS sender, which is what keeps SPF valid across the hop. Bounces to that address are decoded and relayed back to the real sender rather than vanishing.
Loops are refused, not detected later
A destination on this platform is refused when you create the route and again when a message would fire it, and forwarded mail carries a marker and a hop count. A mail loop is prevented rather than noticed after it fills a mailbox.
Its own sending allowance
Forwarded mail is counted separately from your transactional and agent mail, so a busy alias can never consume the budget a password reset needs.
It tells you when it cannot deliver
A route whose domain has no MX, or is unverified, says exactly that. Health is worked out fresh every time you look, so a route can never keep advertising a state it has since lost.
What you actually do. Once.
Add your domain
Publish the DNS records we give you, including the MX record, since receiving is the point here.
Add a route
hello@yourbrand.com, or *@yourbrand.com, pointed at the mailbox you already read. The destination has to be off this platform.
Send yourself a test
It should arrive in seconds, in the inbox rather than spam, from an SRS sender. If it cannot, the route says why.
Questions
Will forwarded mail land in spam?
It should not. The message is re-sent from a signed sender that keeps SPF valid across the hop, which is the thing most forwarders get wrong.
Can I forward to another address on OpenHelm?
No, and it is refused rather than allowed to loop. Forwarding is for getting mail off this platform to somewhere you already read.
What happens to bounces?
They come back to the signed address we sent from, are decoded, and are relayed to whoever originally wrote to you, so a failure reaches the person who can act on it.
Do I need an inbox for the address?
No. An address with no inbox is still caught by a domain catch-all route, so you can forward mail for an address that does not otherwise exist.
Give your agents a real email address.
Inboxes on your own domain, replies that wake the agent handling them, and a person in the loop wherever you want one.