When someone emails your AliasFleet alias, AliasFleet takes the message, checks the alias is still active, and passes it on to the real inbox you linked to that alias. The sender, subject, and body reach you as the sender wrote them, normally promptly. Your real address stays private because the sender only ever sees the alias.
This page follows one message from sender to inbox, so you can tell what normal delivery looks like and where to look when something seems slow.
How does an email travel from sender to my inbox?#
It takes the same five steps every time, whether the sender is a shop, a newsletter, or a person writing to you directly.
Take a concrete case. You hand an online shop the alias amazon-shopping@supademo.aliasfleet.me, and that alias points at your real inbox, demo@aliasfleet.com. When the shop sends your order receipt, this is the path it follows:
- The shop sends to your alias. The receipt goes to
amazon-shopping@supademo.aliasfleet.me, not to your real address. The shop never seesdemo@aliasfleet.com. - AliasFleet accepts it. The message arrives on AliasFleet mail servers.
- AliasFleet checks the alias. It confirms the alias is still active and has a verified destination attached. If the alias is off or deleted, the message stops here and the documented behaviour is that the sender gets a bounce (see below).
- AliasFleet passes it on. The message goes to your destination inbox with the sender, subject, and body as the sender wrote them.
- It lands in your real inbox. The receipt shows up in your normal inbox, normally promptly, addressed to your alias.
Open any alias in the app and you see the same layout as the screenshot below: the alias detail page shows "Forwarding to: demo@aliasfleet.com", a green Active toggle switched on with a tick, stat cards for FORWARDED, BLOCKED, TRACKERS BLOCKED, and LAST USED, a Destinations list, and Reply and Send controls. Click any address to copy it; a "Click to copy" tooltip confirms it.
What does the forwarded email look like?#
The forwarded message arrives with the sender, subject, and body as the sender wrote them. The per-alias banner setting controls a small header above the message noting which alias it came through, for example amazon-shopping@supademo.aliasfleet.me. That banner is there for you, so you can see at a glance which alias a message came through.
If you would rather not see the banner, switch it off for one alias at a time. See Per-Alias Email Banner Settings for the steps.
What is a destination, and can I change it?#
Your destination is the real inbox you actually open each day. Each alias points to one destination, the one you chose when you created it.
You can hold more than one destination on your account. That helps if you want some aliases going to a work inbox and others to a personal one. You can also point an alias at a different destination later, for example if you move to a new main inbox. The alias address itself stays the same, so senders notice nothing.
To add, verify, or change a destination, see What Is a Destination?. Aliases forward to destinations shown as verified. If a destination is not showing as verified, see Verifying a Destination and Can't Verify a Destination for the next steps.
How do I reply to a forwarded email?#
Reply from the forwarded message in your real inbox. Before you reply, confirm Can Reply is on for that alias and check the permission mode for the alias, since reply behaviour depends on both settings.
With Can Reply on, you hit reply on the forwarded email as normal, and the recipient sees your alias as the sender.
See Reply from Aliases for the full setup and Alias Permission Mode for what each mode allows.
What happens if my alias is turned off or deleted?#
Forwarding stops at once. The documented behaviour is that the sender gets a bounce telling them delivery failed, rather than the mail vanishing silently.
Alias deactivated. You switched the alias off. Mail sent to it bounces back to the sender with a delivery failure message, per the documented behaviour.
Alias deleted. Same result. Once deleted, that address is gone, and any mail sent to it bounces, per the documented behaviour.
When an alias is off or deleted, the documented behaviour is that senders get a bounce rather than the mail vanishing silently, so they know the message did not get through instead of assuming you ignored it. If you only want a short pause, deactivate the alias instead of deleting it: you can switch it back on later and the same address works again.
Why is a forwarded email delayed?#
If a message is late, work through these checks in order. Each one rules out a common spot where mail can stall.
- Check your spam folder. A first message through a new alias can land in spam. If it is there, mark it as not spam so later mail from that alias lands in your inbox.
- Check the alias is active. On the alias detail page, the Active toggle should be on and green. If it is off, mail to that alias does not forward; the documented behaviour is that the sender gets a bounce.
- Check your destination filters. A rule or filter in your real inbox may have moved the message to another folder or archived it. Search your inbox for the sender or the alias address.
- Wait a few minutes, then re-check. If the message still has not arrived after a short wait, send a fresh test message to the alias and see whether that one arrives.
- Check whether anything is arriving at all. If no alias is forwarding anything, the problem is wider than one alias.
If mail still does not arrive after these checks, see Emails not arriving for the full checklist, or Alias not forwarding if one specific alias stopped while others still work.
How do I check forwarding is working?#
Send a test email to a test alias and confirm it lands in your destination inbox. If it arrives, forwarding is working for that alias. If it does not, work through the delay checks above.
- Your First Alias - create an alias and send a test email to confirm it forwards.
- Emails not arriving - the full delivery checklist.
- Email forwarding vs aliases - how forwarding differs from the pause, reply, and leak controls an alias adds.