ForwardThis vs Magical
Magical and ForwardThis both take typing off you, from opposite ends. Magical is a Chrome extension that automates your own keyboard: a shortcut expands into a message, a click fills a form, and details move from one tab to the next. Its own listing is refreshingly blunt about the trade, saying it does not rely on integrations, APIs or workflow builders. That is exactly why it works on any website, and exactly why you have to be sitting there. ForwardThis works through accounts you connect, after you have shut the laptop: forward an email, write what you need, and the filing, logging and diarising happen without you.
ForwardThis and Magical, side by side
What it automates
Where it runs
How it reaches an app
Being there
Apps
Pricing unit
Free plan
Paid from
Undo
What the company sells now
Magical pricing and limits checked 5 September 2026.
Which one fits how you work?
Choose Magical if
The system you are fighting has no API and never will. Magical types into whatever is on the screen, which is precisely the case ForwardThis cannot serve.
The repetition is in your own writing. Shortcuts that expand into a full reply, filled out with the details of the person in front of you, are what Magical was built for and it is very good at it.
You want a hand on every keystroke. Magical stages the text or the form and you submit it, so nothing is committed that you have not just read.
The cost of your day is data entry in a browser rather than decisions. Sourcing candidates into an ATS, copying leads into a CRM, filling the same intake form fifty times: Magical shortens all of it, and does it on sites nobody has built an integration for.
Choose ForwardThis if
The work has to happen while you are away from the keyboard. A phone and a forwarded email are the whole interface.
What costs you is not the typing. It is remembering to file the attachment, log the reply and put the follow-up in the diary, in apps you do not currently have open.
You want the change written through a connected account and reported back, so there is a record of what happened rather than a form you hope you filled in correctly.
You want a way back afterwards. Reversible work can be undone for 24 hours once it has landed, which a submitted form does not offer.
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.
Dara Whelan
Application - Site Estimator
dara-whelan-cv.pdf
Your instructions
Add Dara to the candidate tracker as applied for estimator, file the CV under Recruitment, and book a first call Thursday at 10.
Airtable
Add Dara to the tracker
Estimator, Applied
OneDrive
File dara-whelan-cv.pdf
Recruitment / Estimator
Google Calendar
Book the first call
Thursday, 10am
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 Magical alternative?
- For the part of Magical people use to move information out of an email and into an app, yes, and without any typing at all. For text expansion itself, no. If what you want is a shortcut that turns three keystrokes into a paragraph while you write, that is a text expander's job and ForwardThis is not one.
- Does ForwardThis work on any website, the way Magical does?
- No, and this is the clearest difference between them. Magical reaches roughly any site because it types into the page like a person. ForwardThis reaches 145+ apps because there is a real integration behind each one. Magical wins on breadth; ForwardThis wins on what it can do once it is there, because a proper integration can be checked, confirmed and undone.
- Magical says it needs no integrations. Isn't that simpler?
- It genuinely is, and it is the right trade for plenty of people. Nothing to connect, nothing to authorise, works on the intake form your supplier built a decade ago. The cost shows up at the edges: it cannot act when the tab is shut, it cannot tell you afterwards what it changed, and there is no way back other than doing it again by hand.
- Do I have to install anything to use ForwardThis?
- No. There is no extension, no desktop app and no browser requirement. Sign up, verify your email, connect the apps you want it to write to, and forward a message with some simple instructions. It behaves the same from a phone as from a laptop.
- Is Magical still a text expander?
- The Chrome extension is, and it is still listed, maintained and popular. The company behind it now leads with something else: getmagical.com sells pre-built AI agents for healthcare operations, sold through a demo rather than a signup, and its public pricing page no longer lists plans. Worth knowing before comparing, because reviews of Magical the productivity tool and Magical the healthcare platform are describing two different products.
- Can I use both?
- Easily, because they never touch the same moment. Magical speeds up the work you are doing right now with your hands on the keyboard. ForwardThis takes the jobs you would otherwise carry around in your head until you are back at a desk. Plenty of people would be well served by one of each.