Aol Mail Account How to Set Up Mail Forwarding

These days, it’s very common for people to have multiple email addresses across several different platforms, with the most popular being Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook/Hotmail and, of course, AOL Mail. Keeping track of all these different accounts can be confusing and stressful, and lots of people would rather just have everything come to a single inbox where they can manage all their various email addresses. Believe it or not, this is a real possibility that you can take advantage of by setting up mail forwarding to or from your AOL Mail account.

Setting up mail forwarding in your AOL email is not quite as straightforward as in other major email services. This is because there is no option in your mail or account settings to configure it from inside AOL. Instead, you will have to go to your other email service or services and set them up to either forward messages to your AOL Mail inbox or to import from AOL into its own inbox.

aol mail

In this post, we’ll give you step by step instructions for how to set up mail forwarding in AOL Mail for Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook/Hotmail. I’ve included screenshots of the process for Gmail, as well; the steps are so similar that you’ll see there is really no need to repeat the screenshots for the other two email platforms.

For this tutorial, you will need to know how to sign in to your other email account, whether it’s on Gmail, Yahoo or Outlook, and you will also need to have your AOL email address and password handy.

How to forward email from Gmail to AOL Mail

If you want to use AOL as your primary email account, and you also use Gmail, this is the section you want to pay attention to.

First, sign in to your Gmail account so that you are looking at your inbox there. In the upper right-hand corner, there is a button with a gear icon on it. Click on this to open a dropdown menu of options.

aol mail account

By default, you will be taken to the “General” tab on your Settings page. In order to configure your Gmail messages to be automatically sent to your AOL Mail inbox, you want to go to the tab labeled “Forwarding and POP/IMAP”.

create new email account

Once you are in the correct tab, the first section is titled “Forwarding”. Click on the button in this section that reads “Add a forwarding address”.

aol mail

This will cause a pop-up window to appear, where you should enter the AOL email address that you want your Gmail messages to be sent to. Make sure you type everything in correctly, and then click “Next”.

aol

You will see another pop-up asking you to confirm whether you want to forward your Gmail inbox to the email address you entered. It’s a good idea to double check at this point, because you don’t want to accidentally send all your private email to some random person on account of a typing error. If you made a mistake, click “Cancel” and start the process over again.

When you are sure that your AOL email is entered correctly, you can click on “Proceed”.

aol email

Since you are already signed into Gmail, you may simply have to wait a few minutes for everything to sync up, although sometimes Google will ask you to enter your Gmail password again for security reasons. Once that is done, you should start receiving all new messages sent to your Gmail in your AOL Mail inbox.

How to forward email from AOL Mail to Gmail

This section will go over how to do the opposite process: forwarding the email you receive in AOL so that you can check it in your Gmail inbox.

To do this, start by going to your Gmail settings just like we did in the first section, by clicking the gear icon in the upper right-hand corner and selecting “Settings”.

In this case, to have your AOL Mail forwarded to your Gmail account, you will need to go to the tab labeled “Accounts and Import”.

email aol

Now, go to the second section from the top, which is called “Import mail and contacts”. This will allow you to transfer your messages and contacts from other email platforms, including AOL, just as you can see in the image there. Click on the link that says “Import mail and contacts”.

create new email account

What happens now is Gmail will need to verify that you are actually authorized to be importing email from the AOL Mail account you’re going to enter, so in the pop-up window that emerges, you are going to have to enter your AOL login information.

In the first step, type in your AOL email address whose inbox you want to forward into your Gmail. Then, click “Continue”.

aol mail

Next, type in the password you use to sign in to AOL Mail.

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If the AOL email and password you provided Google with are correct, Gmail will communicate with the AOL Mail servers and import your messages and contacts so that you can access them alongside your regular Gmail stuff. This process can take a few minutes, especially if you have a lot of data that needs to be forwarded.

How to set up mail forwarding for AOL Mail in Yahoo

Yahoo has undergone some fairly radical changes recently, and since AOL doesn’t have a way to directly configure mail forwarding, there is no easy way to forward your Yahoo email to your AOL Mail inbox.

You can, however, go into your Yahoo Mail settings and import from AOL, so that you can read your AOL email in your Yahoo inbox.

Click on the gear icon in the upper right-hand corner, and select “More Settings” from the bottom of the dropdown menu that opens.

Go to the second section, which is called “Mailboxes”, and click on the blue button that says “Add mailbox”. From the short list of email providers that shows up to the right of the screen, click on AOL.

yahoo mail account

Now, all you have to do is enter your AOL email address and password when prompted. If you enter them correctly, Yahoo will be able to retrieve your mail and contacts from the AOL servers and show them to you in your Yahoo inbox. The actual forwarding can take a few minutes, but your patience will be rewarded.

How to set up mail forwarding for AOL Mail in Outlook

Unlike Yahoo, Hotmail and Outlook (which function the same way under the broader “Windows” or “Microsoft” account) allow for email forwarding with AOL Mail in either direction.

First, let’s look at what you need to do if you want your messages in Outlook to be automatically forwarded to your AOL inbox.

Sign in to your Hotmail or Outlook email so that you are looking at your inbox (I use the web version; if you are using a native app for Windows 10, for example, your screen may look slightly different). Click on the gear icon in the upper right-hand corner of the screen (are you noticing a pattern here?), and select “Options” from the menu that unfolds.

On your Outlook Mail options page, go to the section called “Forwarding”, click the button next to “Start forwarding”, and then enter your AOL email address in the text box.

create outlook mail account

To do it the other way around, so that you can check your AOL email from your Outlook or Hotmail inbox, follow the steps above to get to the options page, but go to the section called “Connected accounts” instead. Click on the link that says “Other email accounts” under the header “Add a connected account”. Then, enter your AOL Mail login information (email address and password).

outlook mail account

Remember that, in both cases, the act of transferring data from one email platform to another can take some time, but with a little patience, you will have all of your email streamlined in one place, no matter whether it was originally sent to AOL Mail or some other email address, which will save lots of time in the long run.

To make sure you are also able to keep track of the email addresses and other information of your friends, family members, business contacts, etc., don't miss our next post.

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