Shared mailbox in tenant without Exchange online license

Question

I have a tenant with a single Exchange Online (Plan 1) mailbox and a shared mailbox that was forwarded to an external address. This worked fine until the Exchange Online mailbox was remove and only a single shared mailbox remained.

Is my conclusion that a tenant needs an Exchange Online license to make a shared mailbox work?

vasilmichev · Answer

Yes, you will need at least one Exchange license, otherwise the Exchange workload as a whole will get deprovisioned. The shared mailbox itself does not need a license, generally speaking.

mvandek2 · Answer

Hi Vasil, thanks! That is interesting; never knew this.I cannot find written sources about this, do you have some references on this behaviour? I have to register it in our procedures.

vasilmichev · Answer

Reference for what, that you need a license in order to use the service? 🙂

mvandek2 · Answer

Yes, or put differently, that you cannot use shares mailboxes without at least one Exchange Online license.

vasilmichev · Answer

It's not about shared mailboxes, it's about using the Exchange Online service as a whole. You need at least one valid license for that, if you don't have such any feature dependent on the service will not be available, shared mailboxes included.

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Shared mailbox in tenant without Exchange online license

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