How to forward multiple emails in Gmail

Let’s say you’re passing off a client to another colleague, and you want to forward them all of your past email conversations. You could comb through your emails for hours and send them over one by one — or you could forward multiple emails in Gmail with a few clicks. 

Gmail offers several native ways to forward multiple conversations, but there are also other tools, like Streak Share, that allow you to create a link to an email that you can paste in any app or email draft.

Depending on your situation, one method might work better than another. We’ll dig into your options below so you can figure out how to forward multiple emails in Gmail in a way that works best for you.

{{cta-box}}

How to forward multiple emails in Gmail

There are three ways to forward multiple emails in Gmail:

1. You can select multiple emails and forward them as attachments.
2. You can forward multiple messages as bulk emails in an email thread.
3. You can forward all emails matching a filter to a certain recipient.

It’s important to know you can only do these advanced functions in a desktop browser. You can’t forward multiple emails through the mobile app. Here’s more information about each of these options.

<div class="anchor-wrapper"><div id="forward-as-attachments" class="anchor-target"></div></div>

Option 1: Forward as attachments

You can forward multiple emails in Gmail as attachments in one message. This is useful because the recipient can click on whichever email they want to read in the list of attached files. The files have the .eml extension, which means they can be opened by any email client.

You can forward many emails as long as they fit within Gmail’s total attachment limit of 25 MB. Please note: Forwarded emails will contain their attachments, so that will impact how many emails you can send.

Here are the basic steps:

1. Select multiple emails with the checkboxes on the left.
2. Click the three dots at the top for the More menu.

3. Then, click Forward as attachment.

4. You’ll see a compose window pop up with your attachments at the bottom.

5. Finally, compose your message, and click Send.

<div class="anchor-wrapper"><div id="forward-bulk-emails" class="anchor-target"></div></div>

Option 2: Forward bulk emails in an email

Another way to send multiple emails is to use the right-click menu:

1. Select multiple emails by checking the box just to the left of the star.
2. Right-click on one of those selected emails.
3. Click Forward.

You’ll see a new compose window pop up. But this time, your selections will be displayed as normal emails within your new email. 

With this method, your net-new email can get pretty long, depending on how many other emails you want to forward. It’s almost like a nesting doll; forwarding 50 emails like this will have your recipient scrolling and scrolling to get to the end of the content. If you want to forward more than five, we recommend forwarding them as attachments using Option 1 instead.

<div class="anchor-wrapper"><div id="set-up-filter" class="anchor-target"></div></div>

Option 3: Set up a filter for automatic forwarding

With filters and automatic forwarding, you can send all emails of a particular type to another address. By establishing these “rules” of sorts, you can automate some of the manual forwarding work you may do at work or in your personal inbox. For example, you could set up a filter where any invoices that are sent to you are automatically forwarded to your company’s billing department.

This forwarding technique is a little more complex, but it isn’t too difficult. It involves setting a forwarding address and creating a filter.

1. Navigate to Settings and click See all settings.
2. Next, click Forwarding and POP/IMAP in the top menu.
3. Click Add a forwarding address.

4. Enter the email you want emails to be forwarded to. Gmail will send a verification email to the receiving address.
5. After the forwarding address is set up, go back to your full settings, and click Filters and Blocked Addresses
6. Click Create a new filter.

7. Select your filter settings in the popup window. Your filter options include:

• From: Choose a “from” address to filter for
• To: Choose an outgoing address to filter for
• Has the word: Filter for a specific word in an email body or subject
• Doesn’t have: Filter for emails missing certain words
• Size: Filter all messages above or below a certain size
• Has attachment: Filter for emails with an attachment

8. Once you input your parameters, click Create filter.
9. In the next window, click Forward it to… and select the address you just set up.

10. Click Create filter. Gmail will now send all new emails matching your filter settings to the forwarding address.

Forwarding is really just the beginning of what you can do with Gmail filters. You can also archive filtered emails, mark them as read or unread, or delete them to remove duplicates and keep your inbox organized. However, keep in mind that with all three of these options, you’re only able to send a snapshot of a past email conversation; there’s no live or updatable element to these options. That’s where Streak comes in.

<div class="anchor-wrapper"><div id="streak-share" class="anchor-target"></div></div>

Create email sharing links with Streak Share

With Streak Share, you can create a “living” link for any email conversation. By that, we mean that anyone with a link to the conversation can see the latest responses in the email thread and stay up-to-date on what’s happening in those communications. Rather than forwarding a group of emails, you just have to send someone a link, and they can see all of an email thread’s history in one easy-to-create link.

In our opinion, this functionality is more helpful than Gmail’s native workarounds because none of the three options for forwarding multiple emails in Gmail allow you to easily see the latest, live messages on a thread. You could set up filtered forwarding to pass along those future emails, but they won’t show up in the same place. 

But with Streak Share, you can share view-only email threads that stay up to date with all of the latest replies. Plus, users can view the content in any browser (not just an email client), and you can revoke access at any time as needed. 

If you’re unfamiliar with Streak, it’s a Chrome extension that powers up your Gmail account with CRM tools, email tracking, mail merge, and more. It makes it super easy to create URLs that link to each Gmail conversation thread and send them to others via Slack, email, text message, LinkedIn, or however else you want.

<div class="anchor-wrapper"><div id="streak-crm" class="anchor-target"></div></div>

Use Streak CRM to share emails with your team

If your team connects with clients via email, it’s only natural that not everyone will be on every email, fully in the loop. Luckily, Streak gives teams like yours the ability to check in on conversations and deals that are happening without having to ask each other constantly to forward or share conversations. 

Streak’s full CRM platform makes the time-wasting back-and-forth messages between internal teammates about client conversations a thing of the past. You can collaborate with your team to track deals and opportunities right in Gmail. Each deal or opportunity is tracked in a “box” within your pipeline for Sales, Hiring, or other workflows. Here’s a glimpse of what that’s like.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1YAEunp-N2U?si=RO2lY594Tx40itrr" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Each box can hold your team’s email conversations, files, call and meeting notes, and details about the deal. When you add contacts and organizations to a box, you’ll have the option to automatically include your team’s emails with that person or company. This allows your team to share emails, track links within those emails, and even check up on deals without needing to forward emails or create filters. 

<div class="anchor-wrapper"><div id="recap-forward-multiple-emails" class="anchor-target"></div></div>

Recap: How to forward multiple emails in Gmail

The best way to forward messages depends on what you want to accomplish. To sum it all up, you can forward multiple emails in these five ways:

1. Forward emails as attachments in Gmail.
2. Forward emails within your message (like a nesting doll).
3. Create Gmail filters and automatically send emails to an address.
4. Use Streak Share for view-only links to your emails.

Use Streak’s CRM in Gmail to collaborate on email threads with team members.