Shared vs public folder

[Waseem Qureshi]

I've one distribution list (DL), it has multiple users for email forwarding including those within my organization and outside my organization... I want to setup shared or public folder/mailbox which all users from DL would have access to see the messages for reference.

My requirements:

1. All users should have access to the public/shared folder/mailbox (read only access)

2. What should I create public folder/shared etc etc? 

3. When someone wants to answer an email from shared/public folder/mailbox, he will be answer from his account

4. Be available on mobile devices also

I'm new to O365 with basic knowledge and would appreciate how to steps.

[#2]

Neither Shared mailboxes nor Public folders are accessible from mobiles. There are certain workarounds you can use, but they are nasty hacks/unsupported.

Using an Office 365 group might be a better option, however you cannot have a "read only" access to a Group.

So you need to decide which of these is more important :)

[#3]

@Vasil Michev got it, let's keep mobile requirement aside, what is best suited in above scenario? shared mailbox or public folder?

[#4]

Well if you aren't already using Public folders in the organization, creating a new one for this scenario will probably confuse the users. Although granting read-only access on a shared mailbox is more challenging, as you have to grant individual folder permissions, but it's doable. Get some users to test it via Shared mailbox, see if it works for them?

[#5]

@Vasil Michev I’m working out public vs shared folder or may be something else.

3 users a, b, c

Working on 3 projects p1, p2, p3 with personalized email addresses.

Anything related to these projects is copied to three users and to project email. This is leading mailbox storage getting because of repeated delivery to all users.

I want something where I could attach each projects email within each users Outlook and someone told me to use public/shared folders etc

So each users will have their personal messages in thier mailbox and for ref they can go to each projects folder without outlook and reply to the relevant when needed as a sender being user not the projects email.

Also shouldn’t delete any single message.

Other users should be able to see answer by expanding conversation arrow.

Pls advise

[#6]

As I said above PF will work fine for this scenario, my only concern would be that users might not know how to use them, if this is the first PF you are creating in the organization.