As of today, the Get-Contact and Set-Contact cmdlets in Exchange Online are used to view and manage 2 Recipient Types: Contact (non-mailable contacts without an SMTP address) and MailContact. Following a recent analysis, it has been determined that Contact Recipient Type objects are nonfunctional in Exchange Online and hence it has been decided to deprecate the management of these in Exchange Online. Starting on December 15, 2025, the Get-Contact and Set-Contact cmdlets will no longer return or allow management of recipient type Contact Recipient Type objects in Exchange Online.
Notes:
- This update is specific to the management of Contact Recipient Type object and does not affect MailContact Recipient Type.
- This change will only impact organization-level Contacts (objects managed via Exchange Online and the *-Contact cmdlets). It does not affect Contacts created by individual users in Outlook; personal address book contacts remain fully supported and are not impacted by this change.
What’s Changing?
- After December 15, 2025, the Get-Contact and Set-Contact cmdlets will no longer return or allow management of Contact recipient type objects (those without an SMTP address) in Exchange Online.
- This change does not impact Mail Contacts (recipient type MailContact). Mail Contacts will continue to be viewable and manageable as usual using the same cmdlets.
Why This Change?
- Contact Recipient Type are legacy objects that do not have an SMTP address and are not mailable. These objects do not have any functional role in Exchange Online and cannot be created there directly. They exist primarily due to historical sync from on-premises environments.
- Analysis indicates that only a handful of tenants are using the *-Contact cmdlets to manage these objects. For the vast majority of customers, this change will have no impact on day-to-day operations.
- This update is part of our efforts to simplify and modernize the Exchange Online directory infrastructure.
What Do Admins Need to Do?
No action is required for most organizations. This is a minor change that is not expected to impact majority of our customers.
However, if you have objects of Contact Recipient Type, it is recommended to review any scripts or automated processes in use and ensure that they are not specifically querying the Contact Recipient Type object (i.e., non-Mail enabled Contacts) using the *-Contact cmdlets. If scripts only reference Mail Contacts, no changes are needed.
Organizations with unique use cases for these Contacts objects are kindly encouraged to share their scenarios in the Comments section below. The Exchange Online team welcomes feedback to ensure all scenarios are considered.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Will this affect Mail Contacts?
A: No. Only non-mailable Contacts (objects without SMTP addresses) are affected. Mail Contacts will continue to be fully supported, whether they are synced from on-premises or not.
Q: How many customers are impacted?
A: Based on available logs, only handful of tenants are using the *-Contact cmdlets to manage Contacts recipient type objects in Exchange Online. For most organizations, this change will go unnoticed. Customers who are impacted by this changes will receive a Message Center (MC) post in their tenant.
Q: How can non-Mail enabled Contacts in Exchange Online be identified?
A: Non-Mail enabled Contacts (Vanilla Contacts) in Exchange Online can be identified by running the following PowerShell command in Exchange Online PowerShell:
Get-Contact | Where-Object { $_.RecipientType -eq "Contact" }
This command returns Contacts whose RecipientType property is "Contact", meaning they are not mail-enabled. If this command returns no results, there are no non-Mail enabled Contacts in the tenant.
Q: What if there are concerns or unique scenarios involving Contacts objects?
A: Organizations with concerns or unique scenarios involving Contacts Recipient Type in Exchange Online are encouraged to share their feedback in the Comments section below. The Exchange Online team will review and respond as appropriate. As of right now, we are not aware of any scenarios where a Contact Recipient Type is needed in Exchange Online.
Exchange Online Team
