I'm trying to trace a message that was delivered successfully to a recipient's inbox, but that inbox has a forwarding rule set up. Is there a way to trace if the message was forwarded out from the inbox? For context, I performed a message trace on the recipient's email using a keyword from the email subject, but I got "No data available" as a result. Does this mean the message didn't get forwarded?
4 Answers
Honestly, you might have spent more time writing this question than it would have taken just to try the forwarding yourself.
Forwarded messages should show up in message trace as they go from the primary recipient to the secondary recipient. So, yes, you should see it there if it was successfully forwarded.
I tried that method, but there was still no data in the message trace. Not sure if that means it failed since it didn't say anything about 'failed' either.
Here's a quick guide on how to use Message Trace through the Microsoft 365 Admin Center:
1. Log in to the Microsoft 365 Admin Center.
2. Go to Admin centers → Exchange → Mail flow → Message trace.
3. Enter the sender or recipient’s email address and set a date range (you can search up to 90+ days).
4. Click Search to see results showing message ID, subject, status (like Delivered or Failed), and the timestamp.
5. You can view the message trace history for more details.
Are you using the Office 365 client? If you're using something else, let me know!
Yes, you can definitely trace the original delivery of the message. However, if it was forwarded due to an inbox rule, you might need to look into mailbox audit logs or use the Extended Message Trace feature in the Defender Portal for more detailed information.
Got it, I'll check Defender then. I found nothing in the message trace about the forwarding, just that it was delivered to the inbox.
I did try it, but I can't seem to figure out how.