How do I forward a Gmail with its attachments?

Last reviewed: September 25, 2026 · Markdown version

Open the email and use Forward. If you need the original sent intact — its headers, its attachments, exactly as it arrived — use Forward as attachment instead, which Gmail documents on a computer. The two are different, and Google's help is more explicit about the second than the first.

Plain Forward

On a computer: open the email, click Forward at the bottom, add recipients, click Send. In the Gmail app on iPhone or Android it is the same, with Forward at the bottom of the email. For one message inside a thread, use More → Forward at the top right of that message (Forward an email, read 25 September 2026).

What that page does not say is what happens to the attachments. It never mentions them, on the computer, iPhone or Android version. So before you rely on it, look at the draft: if the files are shown in the forward before you press Send, they are going; if they are not there, attach them or use the method below.

A whole conversation: Forward all

To send an entire thread, conversation view has to be on; then choose More → Forward all from the toolbar at the top of the email. The Forward an email page gives this for the computer only; its iPhone and Android versions describe forwarding a single email.

Forward as attachment

Google's steps (Download & send emails as attachments, read 25 September 2026):

On your computer, go to Gmail.
Tick the box next to each email you want to send.
At the top, click More → Forward as attachment.
Add recipients, a subject and your message, then click Send.

Google lists what you get: "You don't need to download the email", "It becomes an .eml file", and "You can attach as many emails as you want". Right-clicking an email and dragging it into a message you are writing works too. Google does not state in so many words that the .eml carries the original's attachments; our reading is that it does, since an .eml is a copy of the whole message and the same page applies Gmail's size limit to it. Every step on that page starts "On your computer", and its iPhone version is the same page, so on a phone plan on plain Forward.

Big attachments turn into Drive links

Size rules apply to forwards like any message. On a personal account "the limit is 25 MB", and over that "Gmail automatically removes the attachment and adds it as a Google Drive link in the email" (Send attachments with your Gmail message, read 25 September 2026). The page on forwarding as an attachment says the same of .eml files: "If the file size is over 25 MB, it attaches through Google Drive".

A Drive link needs the right sharing. Gmail checks whether recipients can open the file and asks you to change its sharing if they cannot; and with "Anyone with the link", people the message is later forwarded to get the same access: "they'll have the same permissions as the people you originally sent the message to" (Send Google Drive attachments in Gmail, read 25 September 2026). Worth remembering when the thing you are forwarding is someone else's document.

What the recipient may see

A forwarded .eml can arrive with a caution. On the receiving side Google warns about attachments that include emails: "we can't confirm that the sender in the .eml files actually sent those emails" (Open & download attachments in Gmail (iPhone & iPad), read 25 September 2026). If you are forwarding as evidence, say in your own message what it is and why you are sending it.

Forwarding every future email

If what you actually want is for new mail to go somewhere else automatically, that is a setting, not a button. Gmail sends a verification link to the new address first, then "We forward all new messages to the account, except for spam"; to forward only some, you create a filter and choose Forward it (Automatically forward Gmail messages to another account, read 25 September 2026). It applies to new mail only; it does not send your existing mailbox.