Forum Discussion
TonyRedmond
Nov 05, 2025MVP
Finding Unused Proxy Addresses for Exchange Online Mail-Enabled Objects
A request came in about how to find unused proxy addresses for Exchange Online mail-enabled objects. There's no out-of-the-box report available for proxy address usage, but we can solve the problem b...
Nov 16, 2025
Hi,
The PowerShell + message trace approach is a solid method. Once you identify proxy addresses that haven’t appeared in historical message traces, here are the recommended next steps:
What to do with unused proxy addresses?
Validate Before Removing
Before making any changes, verify:
- The proxy address isn’t used for any forwarding, shared mailboxes, applications, or SMTP relays
- The proxy is not part of any old email domain still active for routing
- No users or processes rely on it (even rarely)
- You can log occurrences over 30–90 days to be sure.
Option A – Remove the unused proxy addresses
Use PowerShell:
Set-Mailbox -Identity <User> -EmailAddresses @{remove="smtp:email address removed for privacy reasons"}
Option B Archive the Unused Proxy Addresses