Tuesday, February 4, 2014

When You Need to Forward 86 Gmail Messages at One Time to Someone

Today, a coworker asked me how to forward 86 emails at once.

While researching how to respond, I discovered that you can set up a filter to forward messages, but it will only apply to emails that you receive after you create the filter. So, that wouldn't work here.

To easily forward a large number of emails all at once, you can use a simple script from Amit Agarwal on labnol.org.

Here is the tutorial that I created for my coworker using Clarify. I used Clarify's HTML option under 'Share this page' to insert the content of my tutorial below.


How to automatically forward new or existing email messages to another address using Gmail


1. Create a copy of the google spreadsheet with the script.


2. Fill out the label and address to forward to.

It's a good idea to use a temporary label that you'll create just for this purpose, eg: 'FWDTOJENNA'.
2. Fill out the label and address to forward to.


3. Click on 'Gmail Forward' in the Google Doc menu.

3. Click on 'Gmail Forward' in the Google Doc menu.


4. Click on Initialize.

4. Click on Initialize.


5. Confirm authorization.

5. Confirm authorization.


6. Click 'Accept'.

6. Click 'Accept'.


7. In your Gmail inbox, apply the label to all the messages you want to forward.

You can click on the first message to forward and then, while holding down the SHIFT key, click on the last (if you're selecting a series of messages). This will check them all off.

Then click on the label icon (it looks like a tag). Put in the label that you decide to use. Click 'Create new'.
7. In your Gmail inbox, apply the label to all the messages you want to forward.


8. Confirm the new label by clicking 'Create'.

8. Confirm the new label by clicking 'Create'.


9. Go back to the Google Spreadsheet and click 'Start Auto-Forward'.

9. Go back to the Google Spreadsheet and click 'Start Auto-Forward'.


10. The emails will be forwarded. It'll take a few minutes for a large number of emails.

10. The emails will be forwarded. It'll take a few minutes for a large number of emails.


11. When done, choose 'uninstall'.

This will stop the auto-forwarding of the messages.
11. When done, choose 'uninstall'.



Have you tried this method? or have you discovered an alternative? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.