Forum Discussion
Setting up mail forwarding of an account with no Outlook license
Hi,
Currently we have an account that can be used to log into office.com. There's no Outlook license applied to the account. As a result, if someone sends an email to it, it will be sent back because it's not a valid email address. (e.g. due to not having a license, there's no mailbox).
I was wondering if it's possible to setup mail forwarding on this account? Or would it require an Outlook license?
Sincerely,
Jason
2 Replies
As VasilMichev​ already mentioned, Mail Flow rules (also known as Transport Rules) will work as they work before an attempt is made to deliver the email to a mailbox.
However, this might not be the way to go in a larger corporate environment where you in general don't want to create Mail Flow rules "per user".
For most use cases, creating a Mail User would be a better fit. This allows you to create a sign-in for the user but associate it with an external email address as well. I that case, emails sent to the internal address of the user, are automatically sent (routed/forwarded) to the external address and don't require an Exchange Online or Outlook license to do so.
For more info see; Manage mail users in Exchange Online | Microsoft Learn
And: Recipients in Exchange Online | Microsoft Learn"Standard" forwarding controls do indeed require a mailbox, but you should be able to use a mail flow rule instead: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/security-and-compliance/mail-flow-rules/mail-flow-rule-actions
Configure the conditions as needed and use the RedirectMessageTo action.
