What is the difference between “resend” and “forward”?
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You hit send on an important email, then realize you forgot to include someone. Should you resend it or forward it? The answer depends on whether you're fixing a delivery problem or sharing context.
Resend tries to deliver the original message again, exactly as it was. You're the same sender, the subject line stays the same, the message body is identical. Most email clients offer a "resend" option when a send fails or bounces. You might also resend after fixing a typo in the recipient's address or adding someone you accidentally left off the original send. The message looks like it came from you originally, not like something you're passing along.
Forward wraps the original message inside a new one where you become the sender. The subject line gets prefixed with "Fwd:" and the original message appears quoted below your new intro. You're not trying to correct a failed send, you're adding commentary ("Thought you'd want to see this") or introducing the message to someone new. The recipient sees it came from you, not the original sender.
When to use which: If an email bounced because of a typo in the address, resend it. If you want to loop a colleague into a conversation and add your own take, forward it. If you're sharing a newsletter with a friend and want to say why it's worth reading, forward it. If a campaign went to the wrong segment and you need to send it to the right one, that's a resend (though most ESPs call this "copy and send to new list").
One practical difference: when you forward an email, the original message metadata (like tracking pixels or UTM parameters) stays embedded in the quoted text, but those links still point to the original sender's analytics. When you resend, the message recreates itself fresh, so if you're using an ESP like Mailchimp or Brevo, a resend will generate new tracking data under your account. Forwarding doesn't.
If you're sending from an ESP and a campaign completely failed (say, your authentication broke mid-send), you'll want to resend rather than forward. The ESP's resend function handles this cleanly. But if you're sharing an email someone else sent you, forward is the only option that makes sense because you're not the original sender anyway.
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