Reconnect disconnected mailbox to new user account

[Jay Carper]

An on-prem user was terminated over a year ago while litigation hold was enabled and the Exchange Online mailbox still exists in a disconnected state. That user has been re-hired. I can't restore the old account because it was deleted too long ago. I need to create a new on-prem AD account and then reconnect the disconnected mailbox to the new user account once it has synced to the cloud.

Is that possible? If so, how do I do it?

[#2]

If that's an "inactive" mailbox, follow this procedure: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/compliance/restore-an-inactive-mailbox?view=o365-worl...

If it's a "disconnected" mailbox, it's probably in an error state and falls into "not supported" scenario...

[#3]

@Vasil Michev It's my understanding that a mailbox that is on legal hold goes into a disconnected state if the user account is deleted. I think this is normal, not an error state.

I will try the instructions you linked, though. Thank you!

[#4]

That would be an "inactive" mailbox, so the steps in the article above should work just fine. Often times people dont follow the "inactive mailbox" procedure to the letter though, which puts the mailbox in unsupported state, so just wanted to clarify this.