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Jukka Kumpula's avatar
Jukka Kumpula
Copper Contributor
Sep 14, 2016

Cannot add Office 365 external user as a mail contact

Hi!   We have many external users added to Office 365 tenant. I was trying to add one Office 365 external user as a mail contact by defining the same e-mail address in exchange but it fails.   My...
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Gilbert Okello's avatar
Gilbert Okello
Iron Contributor
Mar 13, 2017

Hi Jukka Kumpula. Did you get this to work or is there a work around.

 

It is not possible to add an Office 365 contact after they have been added as external user.

So effectively it is not possible to create a distribution list containing SharePoint external users.

 

This doesn't make sense.

 

Either Microsoft should allow for adding external sharepoint users as contacts OR should allow for external sharepoint users to belong to distribution lists!

 

 jcgonzalezmartin, Dean_Gross

  • Amos_Folz's avatar
    Amos_Folz
    Copper Contributor
    Feb 14, 2019

    I know this is old but I found a work-around when I ran into this issue. If the external user has already been added as a SharePoint site member, you can add them to a distribution list in the admin center under Users->Active Users.

    Just click the user -> Group Memberships -> Edit -> Add Memberships.

    It's not very convenient, but it will work. 

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