Defining Personal Mail Aliases:

As the last eight lines in the Red Hat aliases file illustrate, one of the main functions of the alias file is to forward mail to other accounts or other computers. The aliases file defines mail forwarding for the entire system. The .forward file, which can be created in any user's home directory, defines mail forwarding for an individual user.

It is possible to use the .forward file to do something that can be done in the /etc/aliases file. For example, if Norman Edwards had an account on a system, but didn't really want to read his mail on that system, he could create a .forward file in his home directory with the following entry:

norm@hawk.foobirds.org

This entry forwards all mail received in his account on the local system to the norm account at hawk.foobirds.org. However, if you want to permanently forward mail to another account, create an alias in the /etc/aliases file. Simple forwarding is not the primary use for the .forward file. A much more common use for the file is to invoke special mail processing before mail is delivered to your personal mail account.