Most people reply to or forward emails. However, a rarely implemented redirect protocol ensures that a message goes from a sender to the correct recipient via an intermediate recipient.
Redirect email instead of forwarding (#1604)
Redirection is a special case of an e-mail forward. In a standard forward, the person forwarding the message appears to be the sender. In a redirection, the message appears to come from the original sender.
For example, if [email protected] receives a message from [email protected], and Bob forwards it to his colleague [email protected], it will appear to Fred as if the message was forwarded by Bob. However, if Bob forwards the message from Sally, it will appear as if it came directly from Sally.
One exception is Mozilla Thunderbird. It does not natively support redirection. However, it does support add-ons that include this capability. However, unlike The Bat!, which inserts a redirect-from header, Thunderbird add-ons rewrite the sender line to specify the redirecting sender, but on behalf of the original sender. This functionality mimics a pure redirect, but imperfectly.
