Forwarder not working with Gmail address on receiving end

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TDF76

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I am helping out a small Non-Profit in a developing country. They do not have the funds for paying for Google Workspace for their staff, so we decided to just use the DirectAdmin forwarder tool to forward any incoming email to a specific domainname emailaddress (e.g. [email protected]) to a specific Gmail address (setup for personal use so non-paid, e.g. [email protected]). However, it seems the forwarder does not work. When sending an email to [email protected], it is not arriving at [email protected].

For those of you wondering why we are not using the POP option to retrieve emails from the server we are using... Apparently Google has no fixed retrieval intervals, and it can take from a few seconds to hours to days at times. And obviously we do not want staff to each time have to press "retrieve" manually in the Gmail POP settings.
Also, the reason we cannot have the emails staying on the server is because we are only getting 3GB worth of hosting for free, and already 500MB of that is used for the hosting of the website. And the remaining 2.5GB obviously is not enough to support email storage for 15+ employees for years on end.

I am wondering if I myself can do anything in my DirectAdmin Web Control Panel, or that I need to request the hosting provider to take certain actions. Anything you can think of that can be of help is much appreciated.
 
I am helping out a small Non-Profit in a developing country. They do not have the funds for paying for Google Workspace for their staff, so we decided to just use the DirectAdmin forwarder tool to forward any incoming email to a specific domainname emailaddress (e.g. [email protected]) to a specific Gmail address (setup for personal use so non-paid, e.g. [email protected]). However, it seems the forwarder does not work. When sending an email to [email protected], it is not arriving at [email protected].

For those of you wondering why we are not using the POP option to retrieve emails from the server we are using... Apparently Google has no fixed retrieval intervals, and it can take from a few seconds to hours to days at times. And obviously we do not want staff to each time have to press "retrieve" manually in the Gmail POP settings.
Also, the reason we cannot have the emails staying on the server is because we are only getting 3GB worth of hosting for free, and already 500MB of that is used for the hosting of the website. And the remaining 2.5GB obviously is not enough to support email storage for 15+ employees for years on end.

I am wondering if I myself can do anything in my DirectAdmin Web Control Panel, or that I need to request the hosting provider to take certain actions. Anything you can think of that can be of help is much appreciated.
 
Please do not doublepost, that is not appreciated.
Keep it in 1 thread.
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Thread 'Forwarder not working with Gmail address on receiving end'

I am helping out a small Non-Profit in a developing country. They do not have the funds for paying for Google Workspace for their staff, so we decided to just use the DirectAdmin forwarder tool to forward any incoming email to a specific domainname emailaddress (e.g. [email protected]) to a specific Gmail address (setup for personal use so non-paid, e.g. [email protected]). However, it seems the forwarder does not work. When sending an email to [email protected], it is not arriving at [email protected].

For those of you...
 
TDF76 said:
because we are only getting 3GB worth of hosting for free
Click to expand...
It looks like you are a hosting customer, not a Directadmin license holder (admin). And in fact this forum is intended for support to Directadmin license holders only and sometimes resellers.
Hosting customers should contact their host for support.

One of the reasons is that some hosters (admins) can make some settings which users can't change.

Just to help a little bit.
Forwarding to gmail (although not advisable) should work normally, but can depend on the fact if the sending address is using SPF/DKIM and DMARC and how that is set. If that is too strict, it could arrive in Gmail's spambox.
Next to that, your server should have at least an SPF record for mail, to be able to send mail to Gmail, otherwise the mail will be refused.

I don't know if it's possible for Gmail to pickup mail faster or more often with pop3 but 3 GB is very little space.

When the organisation will answer, the answer will be send from the gmail account, so that mail address will be known anyway. In that case it will be just better to use only the Gmail address maybe. Seems the 15 employees must work with that anyway if all mail is forwarded to that account.

You did not provide any real domain name, so we can not investigate either what might be improved eventually.
So yes, best idea is to request the hosting provider to have a look why the forwarded mail is not delivered to gmail. He can look in the mailserver logfiles to determine what's wrong.
 
Much appreciated. Will ask the hosting provider about that.

And in response to your remark on why we are not just only using the Gmail address...
Gmail allows to reply to emails as if it is coming from the domainname emailaddress, so that is why we want it setup that way.
In addition, using Gmail addresses for a legit NGO seems to look fishy to a lot of those in the Western world. So, not so good for all of our external communications.
 
Mail address is ok, server too. We did some test via pm.
The isssue is only occuring when forwarding to Gmail without content in the mail.
However, when sending directly to Gmail without content in the mail, Gmail accepts te mail.

So probably the mail will be refused to be forwarded to Gmail or at least won't arrive in that case. That might be some outgoing spam rule in DA, maybe ESF.
Logfiles should in fact show this, it's under invenstigation now by TDF76. Tips are welcome.
 
Based on the symptoms you described, this is very likely a server-side issue, not a problem with Gmail. The issue is probably caused by an outgoing spam filter on your DirectAdmin server that is blocking empty emails.

Here’s a breakdown of the likely cause and a step-by-step guide to fix it.

The Most Likely Cause​

Your hosting server is likely running a spam prevention tool like Easy Spam Fighter (ESF) or SpamAssassin. These tools scan all outgoing emails to prevent the server from sending spam. An email with no body content often looks suspicious to these filters and gets blocked before it can be forwarded to Gmail.

Steps You Can Take Yourself​

Before contacting your hosting provider, you can check a few things in your DirectAdmin control panel.

  1. Check Your Spam Filter Settings:
    • Log in to your DirectAdmin account.
    • Navigate to the E-mail Manager section and click on SPAM Filters (or Spamassassin Setup).
    • Look for any settings related to "outgoing mail" or filtering levels. See if you can lower the sensitivity or find a rule that might be blocking empty messages.
  2. Verify the Forwarder Setup:
    • In the E-mail Manager section, go to Forwarders.
    • Confirm that the forwarder is set up correctly:
    • If you need to forward to multiple addresses, make sure they are separated by a comma.
Long-Term Suggestion
As a more permanent and robust solution, you should strongly consider applying for Google for Nonprofits. If your organization qualifies, you can get Google Workspace (which includes enterprise-grade Gmail) for free. This would give you professional email addresses ([email protected]) without needing forwarders and provide plenty of storage.

Hope this helps you get the problem sorted out! Let me know if you have any questions.

Best regards,
 
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