How to suspend emails for a mailbox?

[Grace Yin]

Hi,

We have a user who will not come to work for a few month. We want to suspend this person's mailbox, not receive any emails to his mailbox. 

Can someone tell me what is the best approach?

Thanks in advance!

[#2]

Hi Grace,

You can simply change the email address, or create a Transport Rule.

[#3]

Hi Nuno,

Thank you for your reply. We have set up 2 year retention policy. Will the policy start over if I change the email address? For example, an email was received 1 year from now, if I changed the mailbox email address and change it back when the user is back to work, will the retention resume from the original time stamp or start over from the time I change the email address? In the other word, will it change the retention starting time if changing the mailbox email address?

Please advise!

Thanks,

[#4 · Accepted solution]

Hi Grace,

The Retention policy is based on the user, not the SMTP email. I someone send to the new smtp email address it will continue to do retention according your policy.

[#5]

And a retention policy won’t stop emails arriving in the persons inbox, but will delete them once they are over two years old (in your case). You can also block emails arriving into a mailbox by changing the authentication settings on the mailbox so that email can only be received by a limited list of users, and you could (for example) allow just emails from their manager to get to their mailbox. Everyone else will get a message above their To/Cc list in Outlook saying they cannot email this mailbox (as a MailTip)

[#6]

Hi Nuno,

Thank you for your advice!

[#7]

Hi Brian,

Thank you for your explanation and suggestion.

[#8]

No problem @Grace Yin we are here to help.

[#9]

Hi Brian,

I just got chance to test it. It works, however the sender doesn't receive bounce message. How can I let the sender know this mailbox isn't available?

Thanks, 

[#10]

Hi Nino,,

I just got chance to test it. It works, however the sender doesn't receive bounce message. How can i let the sender know this mailbox isn't available?

Thanks, 

[#11]

The MailTip that you cannot send to the mailbox is internal to your company only. The NDR if you send to them should work externally as well. Its possible that the NDR was junked but that is harder to work out, as NDR's can be junked if your mail flow is not configured properly (which would be a different thread and not in answer to this one). If you block anonymous senders to a mailbox you will get an NDR back (same for quota size restrictions and transport rules)