ForwardThis vs Clean Email
If you came here for a Clean Email alternative, ForwardThis is probably not one. Clean Email reduces what has piled up and what arrives next: it groups a mailbox into bundles and Smart Folders, unsubscribes in bulk, screens unknown senders, and holds the line with Auto Clean rules. Every one of those actions happens to an email. ForwardThis never touches your mailbox and never removes anything from it. It acts on one message you choose to forward, and what it changes sits somewhere else entirely: a ticket raised, an order annotated, a file put where the claim will be handled. Complements, not substitutes.
ForwardThis and Clean Email, side by side
How it works
What you get
What the actions are
Reduces the volume
Unsubscribing
Runs without you
Sees your email
Pricing unit
Free plan
Paid from
Apps
Record of what happened
Clean Email pricing and limits checked 5 September 2026.
Which one fits how you work?
Choose Clean Email if
The mailbox itself is the problem. Forty thousand messages will never be dealt with one at a time, and Clean Email groups them so a single decision covers thousands.
You want a real unsubscribe rather than another filter. Unsubscriber sends the request on your behalf and blocks senders who ignore it, which filing mail into a folder never achieves.
You would rather nothing read a message body at all. Clean Email states it looks only at headers and metadata; ForwardThis has to read the message you forward, because acting on it is the point.
You want it working on its own, across several mailboxes. Auto Clean applies your rules as mail arrives, and one paid plan can cover up to ten accounts.
Choose ForwardThis if
The mailbox is clean and the job still is not done. Archiving the damage report does not raise the ticket, annotate the order, or put the photograph where the claim will be handled.
The thing you need is not a mailbox action. Auto Clean can archive, label, move, trash, mark or unsubscribe, and none of those raises a ticket or puts a photo in the claims folder.
You would rather connect nothing to the mailbox. Forwarding is the entire setup, so there is no account to link, no permission to grant and nothing to revoke later.
You want the outcome recorded where the work actually lives, in the helpdesk, the order or the CRM, rather than in a tidier version of your email.
What a single forwarded email does
The trigger is the email you forward. There is no editor and nothing to design in advance. This whole job is one email.
Aoife Brennan
Order 3312 arrived damaged
damage-photo.jpg
Your instructions
Raise a support ticket for order 3312, note the damage on the order itself, and put the photo in the claims folder.
Zoho Desk
Raise the damage ticket
Support / Order 3312
WooCommerce
Note the damage on the order
Order 3312
Dropbox
File damage-photo.jpg
Claims / Order 3312
You receive a confirmation email once complete, with an undo button that works for 24 hours.
Setup in 30 seconds.
What is ForwardThis?
ForwardThis is an ops assistant for your inbox. It turns email into action, without the hassle. Compatible with over 145+ of the apps you use every day.
Works with any email
Compatible with any personal or professional email provider. Gmail, Outlook and more.
145+ apps
Works across all the apps you already use every day. With more being added every month.
Setup in seconds
No complex setup, apps to install or workflows to build. Sign up, forward, done.
Secure & private
ForwardThis only acts on the emails you send it, and no data gets retained after actions have been completed.
Try it with a real email.
Forward any work email to the address below and see what ForwardThis can do. No signup required.
Occasional product emails may follow.
FAQs
- Is ForwardThis a Clean Email alternative?
- No. Bulk cleanup, Smart Folders, Screener, Unsubscriber and Auto Clean are Clean Email's ground, and ForwardThis does none of them. Read on only if the mailbox is already under control and the thing still eating the day is the admin each surviving email leaves behind.
- Is this like Auto Clean?
- It is the opposite end of the same email. Auto Clean is a standing rule that fires on mail as it arrives and does something to that mail: archive it, label it, move it, trash it, unsubscribe from it. ForwardThis is a one-off instruction attached to one forwarded email, and what happens next is outside the mailbox altogether. An Auto Clean rule can file every order notification into a folder; it cannot raise the ticket, add the note to the order and put the photograph in the claims folder.
- Will ForwardThis unsubscribe, archive or delete anything in my inbox?
- No, and it could not if asked. There is no mailbox connection, so there is nothing to archive from and no subscription list to read. The only email it ever sees is the one you forward, and the copy it works from is deleted within 24 hours.
- Can I use both?
- Yes, and they fit together cleanly because they act at different moments on different things. Clean Email decides what stays in the mailbox and what gets removed from it, and ForwardThis acts on the handful of messages that turn out to be work. Neither can interfere with the other, since ForwardThis has no access to the mailbox Clean Email is managing.
- How does the pricing compare?
- Clean Email is priced per mailbox, with every feature on every paid plan and the plan size set by how many accounts it covers: from $9.99 a month for one account up to $99.99 a year for ten. The free account cleans up to 1,000 messages, and there is a 14-day trial of the paid features with no card. ForwardThis is priced per action for the whole account: 10 actions a month free with every feature, then $15 a month for 100. One forwarded email is one action however many apps it touches.
- Clean Email says it never reads message content. Does ForwardThis?
- Yes, and the difference is honest rather than careless. Clean Email can do its job from headers and metadata, because sorting and cleaning need to know who sent a message and when, not what it says. ForwardThis cannot: working out that a damaged order needs a ticket, a note and a filed photograph means reading the message and your instruction. What it can do with that is limited, on purpose. There is no standing access, the email and attachments are deleted 24 hours after the work, nothing is sold to anyone, and reversible actions can be undone for 24 hours.