I have a highly secured computer windows server 2003 where my outlook express is configured, i want to forward all the mails coming from Outlook to gmail. I put some auto forward rule in outlook but its not working. (May be auto forwarding is disabled).

I can forward mails manually.

Is there anyway to get rid off this problem?


I have written some VBA script to do this *bypass the server's disabling of auto-forward". Basically it mimics the user forwarding the email rather than the server doing an auto-forward.

It's pretty simple:

Sub AutoForwardAllSentItems(Item As Outlook.MailItem)
Dim strMsg As String
Dim myFwd As Outlook.MailItem

Set myFwd = Item.Forward

myFwd.Recipients.Add "[email protected]"
myFwd.Send
Set myFwd = Nothing 
End Sub

It's beyond the scope of this post to give detailed instructions, but here's a summary:

  1. Add the above code in the Visual Basic editor of Outlook (Alt-F11 should get your started). Be sure to change [email protected] to the address where you want the mail to go

  2. Tell Outlook to run this code for each inbound message (Tools -> Rules and Alerts -> New Rule -> Check Messages when they arrive -> Next -> YES -> Checkbox "Run a Script" -> Then select the script you just created.

Now Outlook should automatically forward each email you receive, but it won't be blocked by the Admin as an "Auto-forward".


I've had the same problem, and here's my solution: * Add your gmail account into Outlook * In our Outlook "Rule", instead of selecting "Forward", select "Move a Copy to a Folder" * As the target folder, select a folder in your Gmail account


Basically, with outlook and exchange you by default set up server rules. This means that the rules are applied on the server and on reception of an email regardless of whether your client (outlook) is running. With exchange it is possible to block the automatic forwarding of emails to external adresses (and it seems that your system administrators have done so). The reason it works for manual forwarding is that this is a very different process. It happens on the client, and for the server it looks like just sending any other email.

The reason for such configuration of the server is generally to prevent corporate information and secrets to be leaked out. As this is a valid concern, you probably won't have luck convincing your admins to let you forward your emails to gmail.