How to Create Folder for All Mailboxes in Exchange Online?

Organizations often want their admins to know how to create folder for all mailboxes in Exchange Online or Microsoft 365’s email management system. This is done to add uniformity between employee accounts. Despite being such a critical task, many admins struggle to do bulk folder creation.  They delegate the work to users themselves, resulting in inconsistency, mistakes, and missing value. Or end up doing  one account at a time, delaying the task, thus reducing its impact.

Here we have arragngd for you the go to solution to create custom folders in every user account of your O365 tenant. Let us first look for any GUI approach so we can be sure that there is no other way but the complex cmdlet methods.

Can Admins Create Folders for All Mailboxes Via the Admin Center?

Unfortunately, the answer to that is no, neither the main Microsoft 365 admin center nor the Exchange Admin center allows admins this ability. What they can do instead is use shared mailboxes or public folders and give access to multiple accounts.

Check out our guide to create a shared mailbox in Office 365 cloud.

Likewise, making a  public folder is also easy:

• Log in to EAC > find Public folders > Public folder mailboxes > Add a public folder mailbox.
• Type a name > hit Add.

The problem with this approach is one shared mailboxes have a limited storage quota (50 GB), plus every member has access, so there is no message privacy.

So we turn to the only possible alternative i.e. PowerShell.

Are there any PowerShell Commands to Make Mailbox Folders En Masse?

Yes, there are. Just use this script.

During your attempt to run this script you may face some issues to combact them check if your environment supports the PowerShell sript or not. We have a mini check list you can use to figure out what extra steps you need to complete.

Conditions You Must Meet Before You Use the PowerShell Script

• App registered in Azure AD.
• Client ID, Tenant ID, Client Secret obtained.
• Application permissions granted (e.g., Mail.ReadWrite, User.Read.All).
• Admin consent obtained.
• User is Global Admin, Exchange Admin, or Application Admin.
• PowerShell 7.0+ installed.
• Execution Policy set for script running.
• Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK installed.
• Target users have Exchange Online licenses.
• Outbound access to https://graph.microsoft.com.
• TLS 1.2+ enabled.

These conditions are just one part of the problem the current version of the script is too basic  and only works in some special situations plus there is a lot of room for improvement.

Also Read: How to Create a Migration Endpoint in Office 365 Step by Step

Below we have made a non-exahustive list of changes ou can do in the script to improve its usage.

Limits of this Script and Possible Future Iterations

• The most severe limitation is that the script currently makes one folder at a time, and that too at the account level. So, this means no nested structures are possible.
• The folders that are made are empty, and users have to set rules or manually drag and drop existing emails.
• This script cannot alter the existing folder structure of the account; it only builds on top of what’s already there.
• There can exist naming conflicts in scenarios where users themselves are using the folder name before the admin assigns it.
• The script has no provision to add folders within shared or resource mailboxes, i.e., it is limited to pure licensed user mailboxes.
• No logfile or progress tracker is generated, admins have to rely on intuition or keep a consistent to and fro with users to figure out if the task is done or remains.
• The same problem exists because of a lack of error handling, and also carries the risk of hitting API throttling, especially for large tenants with thousands of members

How Users can Do Folder Creation On Their Own?

They have multiple approaches

• Login to Outlook Web/Open Outlook Client.
• Hover over the Account name/ parent folder.
• Click the three horizontal dots icon.
• Choose Create folder/subfolder option
• Type a name and press Enter.

Check Out: Steps to Download All Data from OneDrive for Business Account

If you have a disciplined workforce, delegating the custom folder creation job to users can be beneficial. Plus, as they’re the ones who interact with emails daily, users can provide crucial feedback and improve upon the existing folder structure.

Conclusion

So now any admin, regardless of their technical expertise, is knowledgeable enough. They can now create a folder for all mailboxes in Exchange Online. We included the method users can perform on their own, plus a GUI-based bulk folder creation option available to admins. To top it all off, we also gave you a sample PowerShell script that can automate this folder creation task.

Once you make all the folders and users start to distribute their emails in said folders, it is important that the organization maintains an external backup. This request is satisfied via the SysTools Office 365