Can Someone See if You Forward Their Email: Your Full Guide

Evelyn Sanderson - August 16, 2024

It’s a question that’s probably crossed your mind at one point or another: can someone see if you forward their email? 

The short answer is generally no. When you forward an email, you’re essentially creating a new message, stripping away most of the original metadata that could tie it back to you. It’s like photocopying a document; the content is the same, but the source isn’t traceable from it.

While the answer is generally no, it’s important to understand that this isn’t a blanket rule. It’s rare, but it’s possible that an email client or corporate server uses advanced tracking that could log forwarding activity. These are exceptions rather than the norm, but something to keep in mind regardless. 

For the vast majority of us, forwarding an email is and will likely remain a private action. In this article, we’re going to look more into what prevents someone from seeing that their email was forwarded. We’ll also get into what exactly you should be wary of in cases where your email may be tracked through advanced tracking.

What Exactly Happens When You Forward an Email?

When you forward an email, your email client creates a new, independent message. The forwarded email may look identical to the original email, but forwarding removes all the metadata that could link it back to the original sender or the person who forwarded it. 

This includes details like the original email headers, which show details about the sending and receiving servers. The forwarded email thereby becomes a standalone piece of communication with its own digital footprint.

We used a photocopy example to explain this; the content is the same, but the original source can’t be seen. This means the original sender typically has no way of knowing that their email has been forwarded.

Can Someone See if You Forward Their Email: Advanced Tracking Exceptions

There are some exceptions to the general rule of people not being able to see if an email has been forwarded. One of these exceptions is advanced tracking. 

While rare, some email clients do include advanced tracking that lets senders see the entire journey of their emails. These advanced features are usually optional and will typically require the sender to specifically enable them (assuming they’re available in the first place). 

You’ve probably heard of email providers that let you see read receipts or open tracking, which show you whether an email has been opened. This is similar to how advanced tracking works, but even these features alone don’t show if an email has been forwarded. 

Advanced tracking isn’t standard across all email clients, and clients that do include them usually do so for marketing or analytics purposes rather than to look at individual recipients.

Can Someone See if You Forward Their Email: Private Email Server Exceptions

There’s another exception too, which involves corporate or private email servers with custom configurations. Some organizations have email systems that log a lot of detailed information about email activity, including forwarding activity. 

This is more common in highly regulated industries or organizations that have strict security policies, Once again, even in these cases, it’s unlikely that the original sender would have access to this information. 

The main reason any organization includes such logging is for internal security and compliance reasons; making sure their emails aren’t ending up anywhere they’re not supposed to. Despite both this and the exception we discussed earlier, the general rule of thumb remains true: your privacy is preserved when you forward emails.

Why Does Understanding How Emails Work Matter?

Privacy is a massive concern nowadays, with dozens of forms of tracking following us around wherever we go on the web. With that in mind, it’s important that you understand whether or not someone can see if you forward their email is important in today’s digital age. 

Forwarding an email is generally a safe, convenient, and innocent action, but it can have wide reaching implications depending on what you forward. Consider cyberattacks that occur on even the largest of companies – the majority of these occur through phishing attempts from malicious sources. 

Forwarded emails can inadvertently contribute to the spread of these spam or phishing attempts. If an email that has malicious content is (unknowingly) forwarded widely, it can reach a larger audience and widen the degree of harm done.

Protecting Your Email Privacy

Protecting your email privacy is more important than ever in today’s digitally connected world. You can do this by making sure you have the tightest security measures possible to protect your sensitive information from falling into the wrong hands. 

Strengthen Your Passwords

A good starting point for this is creating complex, unique passwords for your email accounts, never sharing them, and updating them often. 

Password compromisations are uncommon, but they do happen. What’s more dangerous though, is falling victim to phishing. Whenever you’re opening emails, think twice or even thrice before you click on a link within it. This is especially true for unsolicited emails, which will probably have attachments urging you to take immediate action. 

Be Careful of Phishing

These could be phishing attempts designed to steal your personal information. Make sure that everyone in your organization is aware of email best practices too; it only takes one successful phishing attempt to compromise the entire organization.

If you’re receiving unsolicited emails from a source that seems legitimate (a marketing agency, for example), but you’re not entirely sure, consider using an email lookup tool. This tool will let you look into the authenticity of the email address that’s contacting you, helping you differentiate between genuinely helpful emails and outright scams disguised as marketing. 

Information.com’s email lookup tool works by going through huge databases of publicly available information linked with email addresses. From this, we get a detailed report that’ll show you what an email’s legitimacy is like, any social media profiles linked to it, and other relevant info.

Once you have someone’s email address, there are a lot of things you can do with it. If you’re interested in doing a social media search by using an email address, for instance, you might find that it’s an easy process. Just remember to stay alert and protect your own data from phishing emails and other security threats

Email Forwarding Myths: Debunked

There’s a lot of misconception around email forwarding. One myth we often see is that read receipts can show the sender if their email has been forwarded. While read receipts can confirm if an email has been opened, they don’t let the sender see any information about forwarding. 

The same goes for tracking pixels, tiny images embedded in emails that can track user behavior. Tracking pixels are designed to collect information about email opens and clicks, but they generally cannot determine if the email has been forwarded.

It’s rare, but email forwarding can have legal implications in certain cases. Copyright law is one case to consider. 

Forwarding copyrighted material, like book excerpts or study guides, without permission might infringe on the copyright holder’s rights. This is often inadvertent and can lead to unwanted trouble. If you’re ever forwarding an email, make sure you’re aware of any copyright restrictions placed on it, especially if it has protected content. 

This is also true for protecting the privacy in an email. If you forward emails containing personal information without consent, you could violate privacy regulations in some jurisdictions. Needless to say, this would not be an ideal situation and is easily avoidable through some due diligence. 

If you’ve been entrusted with personal information in an email, always handle it with care and be wary of forwarding it without confirmation from the sender.

Reclaim Your Email Privacy

Being able to forward emails without fear of being tracked can let you have valuable peace of mind in our increasingly digital world that gets less and less private by day. There are few exceptions to this rule, but generally, the original sender of an email can’t see if and where their email is being forwarded. 

However, as we looked at in this article, protecting your email privacy goes beyond just understanding forwarding mechanics. Strong passwords and hyper-vigilance against phishing attempts is no longer optional these days.

If you’re ever in doubt about the legitimacy of an email you received, make the best of email lookup services. Once you know the email is authentic as well as the person that sent it, you can decide whether you want to interact with it or err on the side of caution