An inbox can keep receiving messages while silently copying them to another address. During a staff change or mailbox handover, check where new messages go as well as who can sign in. A working inbox does not prove that every forwarding destination is still appropriate.

Make a short record of each destination, its business purpose, who controls it and whether it should remain. Separate an approved shared mailbox from an old personal address. Do not send customer messages as a test until the owner has agreed to the destination and scope.

Check two places

In Gmail on a computer, inspect Settings, See all settings, then Forwarding and POP/IMAP or Forwarding. Record whether general forwarding is enabled and what happens to Gmail’s own copy. Then inspect Filters and Blocked Addresses for rules that forward selected messages.

These settings serve different purposes. Turning off general forwarding does not establish that no filter forwards mail. Gmail’s general forwarding applies to new incoming messages except spam; it is not an export of the historical mailbox.

A destination’s verification step confirms access to that address during setup. It does not prove that the same person should receive company information indefinitely. Recheck the current owner and business reason.

Resolve and verify the intended arrangement

For an obsolete route, record the old setting before disabling or removing the relevant forwarding action. Preserve any separate sorting purpose of a filter where appropriate. If the route is unfamiliar, ask the authorised administrator whether it was intentional and follow Google’s account-security guidance if it was not.

After changes, revisit both settings pages. An agreed, harmless test message can check the remaining routing without exposing a real customer conversation. Record the observed destination and local copy behaviour.

For a planned migration, keep historical mail transfer, future delivery and staff access as separate acceptance items. Forwarding alone cannot demonstrate that the old records are preserved or that replies use the correct business identity.

References: Gmail forwarding.