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Set organizational policies

Default routing setting

Default routing is one of multiple options on the Email settings page for managing mail routing and delivery. This feature enables you to set up a domain-wide routing policy that includes one or more settings. The settings apply only to inbound messages.

To set up routing settings, you specify recipient addresses, and then specify an action to perform on mail intended for those recipients. If you set up multiple routing settings, you can arrange the rules in order of priority (see Ordering your routing settings at the bottom of this page).

An important use for Default routing is for setting up split delivery to route unregistered Google Apps users to your on-premise mail server. This is useful when transitioning users from your legacy mail server to Google Apps. You can also use Default routing to designate an existing user account as a catch-all address to receive messages that are addressed to non-existent users in your domain.

For more information about configuring split delivery and catch-all addresses, as well as other routing options, see Managing mail routing and delivery: Guidelines and best practices.

Important: When applying a Default routing setting on "known addresses," the setting is not completely enforced for messages destined for a Google Group. Settings that don't result in a reject disposition are ignored.
Configuring a Default routing setting for a domain
  1. Sign in to the Google Admin console
  2. Do one of the following:  
  3. Click Default routing.
  4. Click Add setting.
  5. From the drop-down list, specify the envelope recipients to match. Choose one of the following:
    • Single recipient - Specify a single user by typing an email address. For example, enter jjsmith@solarmora.com.
    • Pattern match - Type a regular expression to specify a set of recipients in your domain.
    • Group membership - Select from one or more groups in the list. (Note: Create your groups from the Groups tab).
    • All recipients - This specifies all recipients in your domain. By default, this will only affect unrecognized addresses.
  6. Go to this section: If the envelope recipient matches the above, do the following:

    This section enables you to specify what action to perform on a message when the conditions are met for the routing setting. You have two options in the drop-down menu: Reject message or Modify message.

    Reject message
    If you choose this option, the message is rejected before it reaches the intended recipient. You have the option to enter customized text for the rejection notice. Note that any routing settings with this action specified will automatically be placed at the top of the Default routing priority list (see Ordering your routing settings at the bottom of this page).

    Modify message
    This option enables you to modify messages by adding headers, changing the route, changing the envelope recipient, adding more recipients (additional, or secondary routes), and/or removing attachments.

    See the following descriptions for more details about routing controls.

    Add X-Gm-Original-To header

    By clicking this check box, a header tag is added in case the recipient is changed so that the downstream server can know the original envelope recipient -- for example, X-Gm-Original-To: jjsmith@solarmora.com.

    Adding the X-Gm-Original-To header is useful if you are rerouting a copy of the message to another recipient. In this case, you are changing the recipient address, but the new recipient wants to know the address of the original envelope recipient. They can see the original envelope recipient by checking the X-Gm-Original-To header in the message.

    Add X-Gm-Spam header

    Messages that are routed through Gmail are automatically filtered for spam. By clicking the Add X-Gm-Spam header check box, you also add a special header tag to indicate the spam status of the message:

    • The number 0 in the header indicates a message is not spam: X-Gm-Spam: 0
    • The number 1 indicates that a message is spam: X-Gm-Spam: 1

    By choosing this option, an administrator at a downstream server can set up rules that will handle spam in a different manner than clean mail.

    Add custom headers

    You can add one or more custom headers to messages that are affected by a Receiving routing, Sending routing, or other setting. For example, you can add a header that matches the description that you entered for the setting. This can be helpful for analyzing why a message was routed in a certain way, or why a filter was triggered.

    Prepend custom subject

    You can enter a string to prepend to the subject of messages. For example, if you enter the word Confidential in this field, message recipients might see the following subject: [Confidential] Monthly report

    Change route

    This option enables you to change the destination of the message. By default, the Gmail mail server is the primary delivery. However, you can change the delivery -- for example, by routing mail to an on-premise mail server such as Microsoft Exchange.

    Before you can change the primary delivery, you must first add mail routes with the Hosts tab. The routes that you add on the Host tab are then visible in the Select a route drop-down list.

    Change envelope recipient

    To change the envelope recipient, click the radio button next to the Replace recipient field, and enter the user's email address -- for example, jjsmith@solarmora.com.

    Changing the envelope recipient for a message on the primary delivery is equivalent to forwarding a message to a different recipient. You can also change the envelope recipient on the additional (secondary) delivery, which is equivalent to a "bcc".

    Add more recipients

    Select the Add more recipients check box to set up additional (or secondary) deliveries for dual delivery or multiple delivery.

    Choose Basic from the drop-down list to add individual email addresses, and then click Save. You can add multiple recipient addresses by clicking the Add button.

    Choose Advanced from the drop-down list to choose advanced options for your secondary delivery. Similar to the settings that you modified for the primary delivery, you can change the envelope recipient, add headers, prepend a custom subject, and remove attachments for the secondary deliveries.

    Note: Any settings that you configure for the primary delivery will also affect the secondary deliveries. For example, if you change the envelope recipient, prepend a custom subject, and add custom headers to the primary delivery, the same configuration is applied to the secondary deliveries.

    Remove attachments

    Select this option if you want to remove any attachments from messages. Optionally, you can append text to notify recipients that attachments were removed.


  7. In the Options section, choose whether or not to perform the action only on unrecognized addresses. You can also choose both recognized and unrecognized addresses.
  8. Click Save at the bottom of the dialog box.
  9. Click Save changes at the bottom of the Email settings page.
Ordering your routing settings

The Default routing tab enables you to configure multiple routing settings for your domain. Each routing setting specifies a recipient, or recipients, as well as an action to perform on any mail intended for the recipient(s).

The list of settings is displayed on the Default routing page. To adjust a setting, click Edit. To delete the setting, highlight the check box in the left column, and click Delete.

You can also adjust the order -- or priority -- of the settings on this page. Note that any settings that specify Reject are automatically assigned the highest priority, even if you have assigned a priority of 1 to another setting.

To assign first priority to a routing setting, do the following:

  1. In the Order column, type the number 1 adjacent to the setting.
  2. Click anywhere on the Default routing page to save the change.
  3. Repeat these steps for assigning other priority numbers, such as 2 or 3.