Mail Forwarding - Gmail

Anyone at risk of stalking or abuse online should check that their private emails are not being forwarded to a perpetrator, without their knowledge.

Some perpetrators set up mail forwarding on email accounts to give them access to the person’s emails.

This means, a copy of all emails are sent to the perpetrator without the email user’s knowledge.

There are simple steps to check whether mail forwarding has been set up. Here is how to check on a Gmail account.

Open Gmail and go to the Inbox

Select the Gear icon
Select Settings

Go to the Forwarding tab
Check whether forwarding has been set up

If forwarding has been set up to an address not owned or controlled by the email owner, select ‘Disable forwarding’.

To stop a perpetrator turning this back on, 
Select the gear icon
Select Settings
Select Forwarding and POP/IMAP
If there is an unauthorised email address present, select the triangle next to the email address 
Select “Remove the email address”
Select Okay