Why You Received an Email Addressed to Your Colleague in Outlook
Question details
The user is receiving emails in their Outlook inbox that are explicitly addressed to a colleague.
- Product
- Microsoft Outlook
- Device & OS
- not provided
- Scenario
- The user notices emails intended for a coworker arriving in their own inbox.
- Observed behavior
- Emails addressed to a colleague's email address are being delivered to the user's inbox, likely due to an active forwarding rule.
Confirm with your colleague whether they intentionally set up an email forwarding rule to your address before making any changes.
Disable Email Forwarding in Outlook.com
Ask your colleague to check their Outlook web settings and disable any active forwarding rules directing mail to you.
In most cases, this issue occurs because a colleague has enabled a forwarding setting on their account. They will need to log into their own Outlook account to remove the rule.
Have your colleague log in to Outlook.com, click the gear icon at the top right corner, and select 'View all Outlook settings'.
In the settings menu, click on 'Mail' in the left pane, and then select 'Forwarding'.
Uncheck or toggle off the 'Enable forwarding' option.
Click 'Save' at the bottom to apply the changes and stop emails from being redirected to your inbox.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Can a colleague forward emails to me without my permission?
Yes, anyone can set up an email forwarding rule in their own Outlook account to send their incoming messages to your email address. You will need to ask them to disable it from their end if it was done in error.
Will disabling forwarding delete the emails I already received?
No, disabling the forwarding rule only stops future emails from being sent to you. Any emails that have already been forwarded will remain in your inbox until you manually delete them.
Are forwarded emails marked differently in Outlook?
Typically, a manually forwarded email will show 'FW:' in the subject line. However, if an automatic inbox rule is used to redirect messages, it might appear exactly as it did to the original recipient without the 'FW:' tag.
What if my colleague cannot remove the forwarding rule?
If your colleague is unable to remove the rule, you can create an inbox rule in your own Outlook account to automatically delete or move any emails originally sent to your colleague's address into a separate folder.
