How to set up catch-all and email forwarding

A catch-all catches emails sent to any address on the domain (even a nonexistent one), and forwarding sends messages onward. Useful for small businesses.

What a catch-all is

If someone writes to [email protected], the message lands in one central mailbox. You do not lose emails even if the address does not exist.

Setup in Mailcow

In the Mailcow panel, on the domain, you add an alias @example.com pointing to the desired mailbox. Done.

Simple forwarding (Postfix)

In /etc/postfix/virtual:

[email protected]   [email protected]
@example.com          [email protected]

postmap /etc/postfix/virtual
systemctl reload postfix

Watch out for spam

A catch-all receives a lot of spam for made-up addresses. Combine it with good filtering, see spam filtering.

Forwarding without your own mail server

If you only want forwarding, some DNS services offer free email forwarding without hosting email at all.