Creating Shared Mailboxes in Microsoft Exchange 2010

Creating Shared Mailboxes in Microsoft Exchange 2010

In Exchange 2010 you can create a shared mailbox which doesn't rely on a user account being active to use it. This is better security and will stop exchange from telling you that you need a CAL for the account. Once the account is created you will see a disabled user in the OU you specify below. This user should not be touched.


To do this, log onto you Exchange server and launch the Exchange Management Shell. This will open a special powershell module with the exchange cmdlets loaded.

In the example I give you, you will be creating a mailbox called Quarantine. In this window, run a modified version of this:

New-Mailbox –Name Quarantine –Alias quarantine –OrganizationalUnit “yourdomain/path/to/organizational/unit” –Database “name of database to store mailbox” –UserPrincipalName quarantine@youremaildomain.com -Shared

Below is a breakdown of what this will do:

New-Mailbox at the start indicates that you are creating a new mailbox
-Name is the flag to say whatever follows it will be the name of the mailbox, in this case Quarantine
-Alias is the flag to say whatever follows it will be the alias/user logon name of the mailbox, in this case quarantine
–OrganizationalUnit is the flag to say whatever follows it will be where the account is stored in active directory
-Database is the mailbox store in which the mailbox will be created
–UserPrincipalName is the flag to say whatever follows it will be the email address created for the account
-Shared is the flag that goes on the end to say this is going to be created as shared type of mailbox (free of particular ownership)