Deleted Items in a Shared Mailbox

Iron Contributor

In O365/Exchange Online when a user deletes an item from a shared mailbox it goes to the user's deleted items not the shared mailbox's deleted items. 

 

Has anyone found a way to have them go to the shared mailbox's deleted items?

 

I have seen that Microsoft recommends a registry change but that doesn't solve the problem. In today's world people may be just as likely to use their phone or Outlook on the web.

 

 

8 Replies

@John Twohig 

 

Hi, at the moment there is no support way to do this, other than the registry fix that you have already identified I'm afraid - https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/202517/items-that-are-deleted-from-a-shared-mailbox-go-to-t...

 

@PeterRising 

 

I was wondering if anyone had used a flow or something else to move them from the users' deleted items to the shared mailbox deleted items. 

 

For testing I logged in to the shared mailbox using Outlook on the web and deleted a item. It went to the shared deleted items - which is what I wanted. 

 

So the problem seems to only be with the Outlook desktop client so the registry change should work. In this case items are almost never deleted from someone's phone so that shouldn't be an issue.

 

It is unfortunate this couldn't be done with a PowerShell command like the Sent Items can. It took about 1 minute to get all the sent items to go to the shared mailbox sent items folder but it will take several hours to get the deleted ones correct.

 

Thanks

Will Office 2019 ever be updated to do this automatically as it already happens for the web or App version?

It seems that the only workaround is the procedure described by John. It would be very nice if Microsoft will fix this design flaw. On my opionion all shared mailbox items should be handled primarily in the shared mailbox context: sent and deleted items and there might be the possibility to turn on a copy process to the corresponding folders of the actual user. Thats the behaviour I would expect from a shared mailbox to keep informations transparent for all users of a shared mailbox.

Hopefully Microsoft will fix that soon, because customers are not amused about the present design.

I tested this in Outlook 365 and it seems they've made a change or the KB is wrong.

 

Changing the DWORD value to 4 does move this to the shared box's Deleted Items.

 

If the shared mailbox was added manually then you won't need this. If it was auto-mapped by an admin then you will need to do this.

 

Import this:

 

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Preferences]
"DelegateSentItemsStyle"=dword:00000001
"ShowFrom"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Options\General]
"DelegateWastebasketStyle"=dword:00000004

@John Twohig 

The better way to do this is to use Group Policy.

Using the correct version of the ADMX templates for your version of Office, the one to change is -

User Configuration -

     Policies

         Administrative Templates -

              Microsoft Outlook 2016

                    Outlook Options

                         Delegates

                               Store deleted items in owner's mailbox instead of delegate's mailbox

Set it Enabled and it will work for delegates and shared mailboxes.

 

@AndrewEvans 

 

That may work in some situations but doesn't help if people use other mail clients, use phones for email, or are never in the office to have group policy applied.

 

I get really uncomfortable trying to enforce business rules on a device by device or client by client basis because a situation will come up that you haven't, or can't address.

 

The real solution to things like this is server side rules so that no matter what device or client is being used it will follow the rules.

This only seems to happen for the Outlook Desktop client not OWA or phones.