Staff member leaves - what to do with their mailbox?

Copper Contributor

I am just wondering the best way to handle staff leavers' email accounts. 

 

What I would like to do is convert the users mailbox to a shared mail so that I can then share it with whoever needs to view the users emails. 

 

I would also like to stop emails being delivered to that mailbox and redirect them to a general mailbox so if any emails are sent to the old staff member they wont get missed.

 

Maybe this isnt the correct way to approach this situation. 

 

The part I am struggling with is removing the old staff members email address from the shared mailbox so I can add it as an alias of the general mailbox. I have tried deleting the address via the gui and using powershell and the address just comes back. I have tried changing the address by adding .old to the end (e.g staff.member@company.com to staff.member.old@company.com) but after saving the change does hold but it automatically adds another address of  staff.member@company.com.

 

Until I can remove the address I cant add it as an alias of the general mailbox.

 

Any advice would be appreciated.

4 Replies

Have you seen these steps listed here, or is that what you are already following with step 2 - Remove a former employee from Office 365.  More details here - Convert a user mailbox to a shared mailbox.

 

Also, there is an option to preserve the user's mailbox if needed for compliance - Overview of inactive mailboxes in Office 365, which means the user account can be deleted subsequently.

you can try below exchange PowerShell script and it will stop automatic creating  aliases value 

 

Set-Mailbox -Identity Username -EmailAddresses SMTP:staff.member.old@Company.com

 


@Ed Kenworthy wrote:

I am just wondering the best way to handle staff leavers' email accounts.


@Ed Kenworthy wrote:

I am just wondering the best way to handle staff leavers' email accounts. 

 

What I would like to do is convert the users mailbox to a shared mail so that I can then share it with whoever needs to view the users emails. 

 

I would also like to stop emails being delivered to that mailbox and redirect them to a general mailbox so if any emails are sent to the old staff member they wont get missed.

 

Maybe this isnt the correct way to approach this situation. 

 

The part I am struggling with is removing the old staff members email address from the shared mailbox so I can add it as an alias of the general mailbox. I have tried deleting the address via the gui and using powershell and the address just comes back. I have tried changing the address by adding .old to the end (e.g staff.member@company.com to staff.member.old@company.com) but after saving the change does hold but it automatically adds another address of  staff.member@company.com.

 

Until I can remove the address I cant add it as an alias of the general mailbox.

 

Any advice would be appreciated.


 

I would also like to stop emails being delivered to that mailbox and redirect them to a general mailbox so if any emails are sent to the old staff member they wont get missed.

 

Maybe this isnt the correct way to approach this situation. 

 

The part I am struggling with is removing the old staff members email address from the shared mailbox so I can add it as an alias of the general mailbox. I have tried deleting the address via the gui and using powershell and the address just comes back. I have tried changing the address by adding .old to the end (e.g staff.member@company.com to staff.member.old@company.com) but after saving the change does hold but it automatically adds another address of  staff.member@company.com.

 

The proper way is to Reset the password. Convert the mailbox to a shared mailbox. Or, keep as an User Mailbox and tag it with a litigation hold to preserve the content in the mailbox.

For the Smtp address issue. I've seen this in Exchange 2013. Try moving the mailbox a different database (New-MoveRequest smtp@address.com). Once that's completed, try again. If you're hosting your own  Exchange server. Checked the AD Object for ligering smtp values. You can always setup a transport rule to distribute the email sent to that smtp address to the respected recipients.


 

Do you sync your local Active Directory with Azure AD Connect?