Forum Discussion
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 by using a PowerShell script to download historical message trace data to check every proxy address for all mailboxes against. The question then is what to do with the unused proxy addresses?
https://practical365.com/find-unused-proxy-addresses/
1 Reply
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 RemovingBefore 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
