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I want to create a forwarder email address in Gmail for Business instead of having to create/pay for another email account at the same domain.

I have an email address, [email protected] and I've set up my MX records in my domain to point to Gmail for all mail. I'm using Gmail for Business. Got that all working fine.

I'd also like to set up a secondary email: [email protected]. But I don't really need any storage for that email and I'd rather not pay for it -- the account will receive so little traffic that it isn't really worth it to pay for an entire second account. I'd prefer if that account was just a dummy account that was only going to forward to [email protected]. Is this possible with MX records or Gmail for Business?

I'm looking at the Email Routing config section for Email in the Google Apps control panel. Not sure if this is what I'm looking for.

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MX records control only the server direction (i.e. messages sent to @example.com will be handled by the server located at 123.123.123.123). It's the local mail server that decides that [email protected] and [email protected] correspond to the same inbox. Google uses the term nickname for forwarded addresses.

In order to create a nickname for an existing user/inbox in Google Apps, you need to do the following:

  1. Go to your Google Apps admin dashboard
  2. Click on Organization and users in the blue navigation menu on top of the page
  3. Click on the user, to which you want to assign a nickname
  4. In the User information tab (the default one) click on Add a nickname (it's right below Email quota)
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  • what's unsaid here is that you can certainly add domains and email for an account like "username@" will work for all domains, but they run under the same Apps instance
    – zanlok
    Feb 25, 2012 at 0:37
  • @zanlok: I don't understand what you're saying.
    – dnbrv
    Feb 25, 2012 at 0:39
  • it's an alternate method.. add another domain (which costs at the registrar, but is free as far as your Apps account handling it)
    – zanlok
    Feb 25, 2012 at 0:43
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I have just needed to do this myself, and the answer is not obvious, but is elegant; it can certainly be done.

What I am assuming here is that where you would like [email protected] forwarded to, is not necessarily a user account on the Google Apps business account. So [email protected] is an external user. You just want to forward emails sent to a specific email address, and not necessarily store them in any mailbox on the Google Apps business account.

The answer is to use groups. You can set up a group just like a user, with nicknames as needed on as many or few domains as you have linked to your business account. You can then add any number of recipients to that group. The recipient list may include external email addresses as well as - or instead of - internal mailboxes.

When setting the group up, ensure you tick the box "Also allow anyone on the internet to post messages" and that will expose the group publicly as an email route.

This meets your stated requirement, as a group can be set up and act as a generic and flexible mail forwarder, without it requiring a new mailbox to be purchased.

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  • This is the only answer that actually answers the question.
    – fletom
    Jul 7, 2014 at 19:39
  • Brilliant! Thank you! It wasn't obvious how to find the Groups page, but in the Admin Console I found it by just using the search at the top of the page (searching for "Groups") and then selecting "Add New Group" from the results.
    – Highly Irregular
    Sep 25, 2016 at 22:21
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From what you're describing, it seems that the easier solution for this is to just create an alias (or Nickname, in Apps parlance) for that email address within Google Apps. It'll act, functionally, exactly the same as a forward and send-as address.

Find the user account in question, click "Add A Nickname," and you should be off to the races.

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