Google Apps: How to forward multiple emails to multiple email addresses

A client posed me with this tricky challenge for Google Apps mail routing:

“How do I make it so that any email sent to info@mydomain.com OR sales@mydomain.com OR marketing@mydomain.com gets CC’d to boss1@mydomain.com AND boss2@gmail.com?”

Buried deep inside of Google Apps, there’s a super slick way to do this, even without having to login to the info/sales/marketing accounts.

1. Login to Google Apps as a super admin
2. In the search field, search for “default routing“. (This is the fast way to navigate to Apps -> Google Apps -> Gmail -> Default routing.)
3. Under Default routing, click ADD SETTING. Here are the settings you want:
   1. Specify envelope recipients to match: Pattern Match
      Regexp: ^(info|sales|marketing)@mydomain.com$
   2. If recipient matches, do the following: Also deliver to (add boss1@mydomain.com and boss2@gmail.com)
   3. Options: Perform this action on non-recognized and recognized addresses

That’s it! Be very careful typing in the Regexp, e.g. don’t leave off the trailing $ sign. Also, setting the option to include recognized addresses is important. I forgot to change this the first time, and the rule didn’t work because info@mydomain.com etc. were recognized addresses, so the rule was never triggered.

Another method that doesn’t require super administrative powers, and which doesn’t trigger vacation autoresponders:

If boss1@mydomain.com or boss2@gmail.com have out-of-the-office autoresponders turned on, then people emailing info@mydomain.com WILL get those vacation messages. If this is not acceptable, then you’ll have to solve this problem in a more round-about way:

1. Login in info@mydomain.com’s gmail account
2. Create a filter whose only requirement is that the email was sent to info@mydomain.com
3. The action of the filter should be to forward to boss1@mydomain.com
4. Now create ANOTHER filter that forwards to boss2@gmail.com
5. Repeat steps 1-4 for sales@mydomain.com and marketing@mydomain.com

This method takes a lot longer, not only because you have to login to each account individually to setup the filters, but because you’ll have to have access to the email accounts for boss1 and boss2 so as to click the links that allow forwarding for each of the filters you setup.