How to Create A Shared Mailbox in Office 365: Guide
An IT administrator must know how to create a shared mailbox in Office 365 if they want to enhance their team’s email communication ability. Adding O365 shared mailboxes to your company’s workflow makes it easier for multi-person teams to read and respond to emails.
This is particularly useful in scenarios where frequent, high-volume messages are exchanged, like customer inquiries, sales leads, and recruiting calls.
In this comprehensive blog, we will teach you how to build Share Mailboxes in an organization and provide instructions on how to create, configure, and use Shared Mailboxes in a step-by-step manner.
What are Shared Mailboxes?
A shared mailbox uses a common email address (like [email protected] or [email protected] ) to make a centralized mailbox. This is made accessible to multiple authorized users (up to 25 at a time) directly from their private Outlook web, desktop client, and even the mobile app.
Moreover, M365 Shared mailboxes don’t require a direct login password. Users can just add it like any other folder on their O365 account and access all the emails that are sent/received on that particular email address.
Additionally, Shared Mailboxes are just one among many different Office 365 mailbox types that Microsoft has made available to its cloud suite subscribers.
Now that we know the basics about Shared Mailboxes, it’s time to study what exactly makes them useful in an organization setting, i.e., the reason to create and use these.
Why Do We Create Shared Mailboxes? Key Benefits Explained
- Centralized Group Email: For addresses like sales@ or support@.
- Team Collaboration: Multiple users can monitor and respond.
- Cost-Effective (Free): No extra license is needed if mailbox data remains ≤ 50 GB.
Video Tutorial for Creating a Shared Mailbox in Office 365
Prerequisites for Setting up a Shared Mailbox in Office 365
Regular users can’t make shared mailboxes on their own. So, if you want to know how to create a shared mailbox in Office 365, first check if our Office 365 account has any one of these roles or not:
- Global Administrator
- Exchange Administrator
To assign, ask the Global/Exchange admin role:
Step 1. Visit the M365 admin portal >> Expand Roles >> Select Role Assignments.
Step 2. Besides the Exchange or Global Admin role >> click on the three vertical dots >> Assign Admins.
Step 3. Add Users >> Mark the Checkbox >> Press Add.
After this is done, wait for a few seconds, log out, & log back in, then proceed with the following steps.
How to Create a Shared Mailbox in Office 365 Using Microsoft 365 Admin Center?
There are a few ways using which you can easily create multiple shared mailboxes in Microsoft 365. Let’s discuss them step by step.
Step 1. Navigate to Teams & groups > Shared mailboxes > Click + Add a shared mailbox.
Step 2. Type a Name >> Email fills automatically (but you can change it) >> Select the domain from the dropdown >> Click Save changes.
Step 3. After creation, click the link Add members to your shared mailbox.
Step 4. Click + Add members, search for and select users, then click Add (# represents the number of users you are adding).
By default, users are granted the Read and manage permissions and the Send as permissions. There is a third type called Send on behalf of permissions. Admins must note that a user can’t hold both Send As and Send on behalf of permissions simultaneously.
Steps to Create a Shared Mailbox in the Exchange Admin Center
Step 1. Navigate to Recipients >> Mailboxes >> Click + Add a shared mailbox.
Step 2. Enter the Display Name, Email address (does not fill automatically), and Alias (optional) >> Then, click Create.
Step 3. After creation, select the Add users to this mailbox from the list.
Step 4. Tap + Add members. Select and Confirm.
IT admins don’t need to navigate through the multi-screen GUI applications to make shared mailboxes. Those who are proficient in PowerShell can make their own with the help of the following cmdlets.
How to Create a Shared Mailbox in Microsoft 365 via PowerShell?
Step 1. Connect to Exchange Online PowerShell
Connect-ExchangeOnline -UserPrincipalName [email protected]
Step 2. Create a new Shared Mailbox:
New-Mailbox -Name "Marketing Campaigns" -DisplayName "Marketing Campaigns" -Shared -PrimarySmtpAddress [email protected]
Step 3. Assign Permissions using PowerShell:
# Grant Full Access permission
Add-MailboxPermission -Identity "[email protected]" -User "[email protected]" -AccessRights FullAccess -InheritanceType All
# Grant Send As permission
Add-RecipientPermission -Identity "[email protected]" -Trustee "[email protected]" -AccessRights SendAs
# Grant Send on Behalf:
Set-Mailbox -Identity "[email protected]" -GrantSendOnBehalfTo "[email protected]"
Step 4. After you create a shared mailbox in Office 365, check. Here is a sample script you can use to check the user accessibility details for a particular shared mailbox.
You don’t always have to make a new shared mailbox because Microsoft allows you to change an existing user mailbox into a shared mailbox as well. Let’s see how it’s done.
Converting an Existing User Mailbox to a Shared Mailbox
If you don’t want to create a shared mailbox in Office 365 from scratch and want to retain an ex-employee’s mailbox data for team access, do this:
- License Management: Consider removing the departing user’s license (if the mailbox is ≤ 50GB and no archive access is needed for the shared mailbox). If the mailbox is larger or an archive needs to be accessible, the shared mailbox will require its own license.
- Conversion Process:
- EAC: Go to Recipients > Mailboxes. Select the user mailbox. Click Convert to shared mailbox from the command bar or details pane. Confirm.
- PowerShell:
Set-Mailbox -Identity "[email protected]" -Type Shared
- Block Original User Sign-in: Disable the departed user’s Office 365 account.
- Then, Assign Member Permissions: Grant Full Access and/or Send As permissions to team members for the newly converted shared mailbox.
- Archive Mailbox Considerations During Conversion:
- If the original user mailbox had an online archive, it’s preserved during conversion.
- To allow members to access this archive via the shared mailbox, the shared mailbox must be assigned an Exchange Online Plan 2 license or an Exchange Online Plan 1 license with an Exchange Online Archiving add-on.
- After conversion or creation, you might need to import PST files to the shared mailbox in Office 365 to populate it with existing data.
The reverse is also possible, meaning if you have made a brand new Shared Mailbox, you can convert it to a user mailbox. However, this will also retain all the permissions that other users had. So it is important that the admin revokes the permissions before converting.
Types of Shared Mailbox: Unlicensed vs. Licensed
| Shared Mailbox Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Unlicensed Shared Mailbox |
|
| Licensed Shared Mailbox |
|
Post Shared Mailbox Creation GAL Visibility and Access Control
By default, all new Shared mailboxes are visible in the Global Address List (GAL) for all tenant members. So anyone in your organization can add the Shared Mailbox. However, only users with explicit permissions can access the contents or send emails from it.
If you want the Shared Mailbox to stay invisible from non-members, you can hide it from your organization’s O365 Global Address List (GAL ). This is also an Admin Task:
Step 1. In the Exchange Admin Center (EAC) >> select the shared mailbox >> Use the Hide from address list option in its properties.
Note: Hiding from GAL just prevents manual search-and-add by users. Auto-mapping for Full Access members should still function.
How can the Grantee Users Access Shared Mailbox from Outlook Desktop (Classic Version)?
Step 1. After an admin grants membership, users should restart Outlook.
Step 2. Then, the shared mailbox typically auto-appears in the Folder Pane (auto-mapping).
If the Office 365 shared mailbox is not showing in Outlook, you may need to contact the admin for troubleshooting the issue.
Steps to Add a Shared Mailbox in the “New” Outlook for Desktop
Step 1. Open Outlook >> Right-click on your primary account folder (or use the three-dots menu).
Step 2. Then, click Add shared folder or mailbox.
Step 3. Search for and add the shared mailbox (if not hidden from GAL).
Step 4. It appears under the “Shared with me” section in the left pane.
Use Outlook on the Web to Access a Newly Created Shared Mailbox in Office 365
Step 1. Log in to Outlook web >> Right-click on your primary account folder (or use the three-dots menu).
Step 2. Select Add shared folder or mailbox >> Then, search for and add the shared mailbox (if not hidden from GAL).
Step 3. The Shared Mailbox should appear in the left folder pane.
Best Practices to Follow While Creating a New Shared Mailbox
Keep the Shared Mailbox unique. Like user mailboxes, it is also not possible to have two shared mailboxes that share the same name. If you try, you will receive an error. You can either delete the old Shared mailbox if it’s not in use, use the old Shared Mailbox itself, or make a new Shared mailbox with a different name.
Don’t add more than 25 members to a single Shared Mailbox. Although Shared mailboxes are designed for simultaneous access, they, too, have a limit. It’s been found that shared mailboxes stop working if more than 25 people try to use them at the same time. That’s why Admins are recommended to keep the number of members no more than 10-15.
Also, you can’t have more than 500 Shared Mailboxes. So, before you make a new one, filter out the count of existing ones and see if there is even enough space to make new shared mailboxes.
Keep Shared Mailbox Data Safe with A Professional Solution
An admin’s job does not end when they create a shared mailbox in Office 365. Rather, it begins there. Maintaining the safety of shared mailboxes and making sure that the data in them does not breach the 50 GB capacity is tough. Therefore, to ease that issue, I will suggest to you the SysTools Office 365 Backup tool, the only solution you need to keep a secure copy of all shared mailboxes offline.
This tool allows admins to take charge of the shared mailbox conversion and safely clean out old data without even purchasing a new license. Any organization that manages the Shared Mailboxes on Office 365 must have this tool with them.
Conclusion
Correctly configured shared mailboxes enhance team communication and efficiency. This guide provides the necessary steps for administrators to create, convert, and manage these valuable Office 365 resources, including critical licensing and access considerations.