isr.co.ro : glossary Automatic forwarding A setting on many e-mail systems that lets you tell the system to retransmit all your incoming messages to another address. You might select such a setting if you want to maintain several mail addresses but read all the messages from a single mailbox, or if you want to redirect messages addressed to a former employee to his or her replacement. In most Internet e-mail systems, setting up automatic forwarding creates a .forward file. Some systems also support more sophisticated mail forwarding and distribution systems with mail-handling programs known as mailbots.