Forwarding An Email As An Attachment: Outlook, Gmail, Apple

Forwarding an email as an attachment is easy

Forwarding an email as an attachment is like sending a sealed envelope within another envelope. It preserves the original message’s integrity, including all headers and metadata. This is crucial when diagnosing delivery issues, reporting suspicious emails, or simply sharing an email in it’s original form. Different email clients have various methods for forwarding emails as attachments. Below are step-by-step instructions for the most popular email platforms.

Outlook 2010–2019, Outlook for Microsoft 365

Quite possibly the easiest software to forward an email as an attachment!

  1. Open Outlook and select or open the email you wish to forward
  2. On your keyboard, hold Ctrl and Alt, then hit F
  3. This will create a new email with the selected email as an attachment

If this doesn’t work, you’re probably using the “New” Outlook which has been rolling out in 2025.

“New” Outlook & Outlook Webmail

There’s a couple more steps involved with this, and works on both the New Outlook and Outlook via your web browser.

  1. Open Outlook and select or open the email you wish to forward
  2. In the menu bar (or ribbon as Microsoft call it), you’ll see a dropdown arrow underneath “Forward”
  3. Click that down arrow and choose “Forward as attachment”
  4. This will create a new email with the selected email as an attachment

Gmail or Google Workspace

Gmail via the browser is nice and simple.

  1. Open Gmail and right-click the email
  2. From the dropdown menu, choose “Forward as attachment”
  3. This will create a new email with the selected email as an attachment

Apple Mail (Desktop version)

  1. Go the Mail app on your Mac.
  2. Select one or more messages in the message list.
  3. Choose Message > Forward as Attachment.

Forwarding Email As An Attachment: A Useful Recruiters Tool

Recruiters often need to forward candidate emails to ATS systems, client contacts or internally for governance reasons. It retains the integrity of the email as it arrived, which could be important when you need you to evidence client agreement to terms or contracts. Forwarding as an attachment keeps the email intact with it’s hidden headers and metadata, retaining that all important evidence, such as sender details and timestamps.

Need Help With Email?

Speak to Quinset if email is holding you back. From recruiters with email deliverability challenges, to exploring how to get more out of email in your business, our email experts are here to help.

Book a call with Ben Fielding to find out more.