diff --git a/CHANGELOG b/CHANGELOG
index 5633f70..cbfcb9f 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG
+++ b/CHANGELOG
@@ -3,6 +3,9 @@
 The latest version of this file can be found at the master branch of the
 omnibus-gitlab repository.
 
+7.1.0
+- Build: explicitly use .forward for sending notifications
+
 7.0.0
 - Specify numeric user / group identifiers
 - Support AWS S3 attachment storage
diff --git a/doc/release.md b/doc/release.md
index f5639c4..c7ffc55 100644
--- a/doc/release.md
+++ b/doc/release.md
@@ -74,7 +74,7 @@ sudo su - omnibus-build
 - Test email delivery:
 
 ```shell
-date | mail -s "testing from $(uname -n)" $(whoami)
+date | mail -s "testing from $(uname -n)" $(cat ~/.forward)
 ```
 
 - Configure aws credentials
diff --git a/release.sh b/release.sh
index 1521b65..226081a 100755
--- a/release.sh
+++ b/release.sh
@@ -15,4 +15,4 @@ fi
 
 # We assume that email to the current system user will somehow reach the right
 # human eyes
-tail ${build}.log | sed 's/.*\r//' | mail -s "${subject}" $(whoami)
+tail ${build}.log | sed 's/.*\r//' | mail -s "${subject}" $(cat ~/.forward)
--
libgit2 0.21.2