How do I get rid of the bar in Outlook EMAIL FORWARDING IS ON

Question

How do I get rid of the bar in Outlook EMAIL FORWARDING IS ON

Guillaume Jordaan 0

a Bar appears below the top ribbon in Outlook stating: EMAIL FORWARDING IS ON You are forwarding your email to ...

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4 answers

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Answer 1

Joel Holcomb 0

All answers I've seen so far say that to disable the notification, simply turn forwarding off. The thing is, I know I have auto forwarding rules set up for this particular account; They are essential to the operation of my organization's email service. It's a pain to have to turn the notification off every time I open Outlook and it seems I should be able to disable the notification permanently without disabling auto forwarding.

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Answer 2

HSWinMD 0

Once again, AI is wrong. I do not have automatic forwarding enabled in any of my rules, so where's it coming from? Not from there for sure.

Hornblower409 13,475 Reputation points

2026-08-27T00:09:20.19+00:00

@HSWinMD said

I do not have automatic forwarding enabled in any of my rules

I don't have the problem, so I can't test. Not enough detailed reports to draw any real conclusions. This is all pure speculation.

One theory is that, if you have any Rules, Outlook is misinterpreting one of those Rule and thinks it's an "All Mail Forward" Rule, when it's really not.

Answer 3

Hornblower409 13,475

@Guillaume Jordaan said

a Bar appears below the top ribbon in Outlook stating: EMAIL FORWARDING IS ON

Have seen similar recent reports. It would appear that Classic Outlook is now showing the Forwarding Bar if there are old Rules that it thinks are "forward all mail" rules, when they really are specific to a Subject, Sender, etc.

See the thread at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/5985006/how-to-turn-off-email-forwarding-that-i-did-not-se

Do you have any Rules defined?
| Classic Outlook | tab at https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/mail/manage-email-messages-by-using-rules-in-outlook

HSWinMD 0 Reputation points

2026-08-27T00:35:08.0466667+00:00

I went through my rules list again even more carefully than before and I DID find a forward rule to my wife. I have deleted it and shut down Outlook 365. Now to restart: and no more forwarding bar. Now to recreate the rule and see what happens..... as soon as I created the rule, Outlook put the message bar up at the top of the window. As soon as I deleted it, the bar across the top disappeared! Go figure...

OK, so now that we know it happens, how to shut it off?
Hornblower409 13,475 Reputation points

2026-08-27T00:45:40.5066667+00:00

@HSWinMD said

I DID find a forward rule ... deleted it and no more forwarding bar ... as soon as I created the rule, Outlook put the message bar up

Thanks for the confirmation. Sorry, I don't have any suggestions for a fix.

Bring in Microsoft Support?

MS 365 Admin Only Support (Qualified MS 365 Subscriptions)
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/admin/get-help-support

Classic Outlook In App Support
Help -> Contact Support
Hornblower409 13,475 Reputation points

2026-08-27T00:58:08.9733333+00:00

HSWinMD said

I DID find a forward rule ... deleted it and no more forwarding bar

Just another data point - Same results if you just disable the Rule (uncheck) and not Delete it?

Answer 4

That bar appears because automatic forwarding is enabled on the mailbox. To remove it, turn forwarding off.

For Outlook on the web:

Select Settings at the top of the window.
Go to Mail > Forwarding.
Turn off forwarding, then select Save.

For new Outlook for Windows:

Select Settings at the top of the window.
Go to Mail > Forwarding.
Toggle Disable forwarding and select Save.

If forwarding already looks off, check for an inbox rule that is forwarding messages and remove that rule. The Outlook support content also notes that forwarding can be set up in rules.