Configure User Mailbox in Exchange Server 2013

Posted by Bipin on September 15, 2013

After installing and configuring Exchange 2013 you have to create recipients to be able to send and receive emails. There are different types of recipients in Exchange 2013. Different type of recipients are created and used for different purpose. A recipient is any mail-enabled object in Active Directory. It is important to understand different types of recipient before you configure user mailbox in Exchange Server 2013. In this post, I will create user mailbox of existing user account of active directory. Following are different types of recipient in Exchange 2013, 1. Mailbox: Mailbox recipient can be user mailbox or linked mailbox. User mailbox is associated with active directory user account. In this post, we will create a user mailbox. Linked mailbox is associated with user account residing in separate trusted forest. The diagram below shows components of linked mailbox.

Image Source: Microsoft 2. Groups: Groups can be distribution group, security group and dynamic distribution group. 3. Resources: Resources recipient can be equipment mailbox or room mailbox. These are mostly used for scheduling purpose of the company assets like meeting room, projectors, etc. 4. Contacts: Contact recipients can be mail contact or mail user. Mail contact is a active directory contact that is mail enabled. Mail user is an active directory user that can log into active directory domain but has an external email address. 5. Shared: With shared recipient, single mailbox can be used by multiple users. This type of recipient can be very handy for accounts like, info@mustbegeek.com, contact@mustbegeek.com, and so on.

Configure User Mailbox in Exchange Server 2013

While creating new mailbox for the existing active directory user, various mail attributes are added to users object in Active Directory. The diagram below shows components of Mailbox. If you delete a mailbox from

Exchange server, the user associated with the mailbox is also deleted from active directory. To delete only the mailbox and retain user account, just disable the particular mailbox in Exchange server.

Image Source: Microsoft Enough with the information. Lets create some mailboxes now. Open the Exchange Admin center.

Select recipient in features pane. Click mailboxes tab. Click add and select user mailbox option.

Choose Existing user option and click browse. This means, mailbox will be created for user account which is already in active directory. If you want to create mailbox for user account that is not in active directory then, choose new user and start filling all the boxes. This process will create user account in active directory. So its the same thing either way.

Select the user for whom you want to create mailbox. Click OK. As you can see above, the organization unit is also shown where this user reside. It is under Management OU> Users OU.

If you want different alias or different SMTP name for this mailbox, then you can configure it here on alias section. If left blank, the SMTP name will be the user logon name as explained in my earlier article. Click save to create the mailbox.

You can now see the mailbox. The SMT name is DShields@mustbegeek.com which is also the user logon name. In this way you can create mailbox for active directory user. The user can log in to https://mail.mustbegeek.com/owa as I have already created CNAME record for mail.mustbegeek.com in my internal DNS server. Now configure external and internal URLs for various services to be able to access emails properly. But to be able to send and receive emails you have to configure send and receive connectors.

How To Create A New User Mailbox in Exchange Server 2010 Published Last Updated Introduction One of the tasks that you will be performing on a standard basis with Exchange Server, is creating User Mailbox for your users. There are four types of Mailboxes; User , Room , Equipment and Linked Mailboxes. I will be describing each and then creating a User Mailbox. : : December 27, 2012 December 27, 2012

To create a User Mailbox, follow the below steps : 1. Open Exchange Management Console (EMC) and expand the Recipient Configuration node

2. Right click on Mailbox and choose New Mailbox...

You can also create a new Mailbox by click on New Mailbox... from the right side pane under Actions

3. On the New Mailbox page, The available mailboxes are:

User Mailbox : Select this button to create a mailbox that is owned by a user to send and receive e-mail messages. User mailboxes can't be used for resource scheduling.

Room Mailbox : Select this button to create a mailbox that will be used as a location resource for scheduling meetings. Room mailboxes can be included in meeting requests as resources and can be configured to automatically process incoming requests. If you create a new user account for the room mailbox in Active Directory, it will be disabled. If you plan to associate the room mailbox with an existing account, you must select a disabled account.

Equipment Mailbox : Select this button to create a mailbox that will be used as a resource for scheduling meetings. Equipment mailboxes can be included in meeting requests as resources and can be configured to automatically process incoming requests.

Linked Mailbox : Select this button to create a user mailbox that is accessed by a user in a separate, trusted forest. You must still create a user account in the forest in which Exchange Server resides. This is required to create the necessary Active Directory object for storing the mailbox information.

Choose User Mailbox then click Next

4. On the User Type page, you can either create a new email for a new user or a new email for an existing user in Active Directory.

New User : Select this button to simultaneously create a new user in Active Directory and mail-enable the user.

Existing users : Select this button to mail-enable one or more existing users.

If you already have an Active Directory user wish to create for him/her a new email, then Select Existing User and then click Add to open the Select User dialog box. This dialog box displays a list of user accounts in the forest that aren't mail-enabled or don't have Exchange mailboxes. Select the user accounts you want to mail-enable, and then click OK to return to the wizard.

We will be creating a new user, so select New User and then click Next

5. On the User Information page, fill the user information and then click Next

If you want to create the user in a specific OU, then select the checkbox beside Specify the organization unit rather than using a default one and then click Browse, select the appropriate OU and click OK.

Fill User information and click Next

6. Type the Alias for your user mailbox, and then specify the mailbox database, retention policy, exchange ActiveSync mailbox policy and Address book policy ( if available )

I will be only selecting the mailbox database, as I didn't create any policy yet.

To select a database, select Specify the mailbox database rather than using a database automatically selected, then click Browse

The available databases will be displayed. Select the mailbox database and then click OK

The selected database will be displayed, Click Next

7. Choose the Archive Settings.

You can have a local archive or a remote hosted archive for your user mailbox. Items will be moved automatically from the primary user mailbox to the archive based on the retention settings.

8. Review the configuration settings and then click New

9. The wizard will be completed successfully. You can click on Finish to close the wizard.

10. Finally, you can see the new user created in the Mailbox node under Recipient Configuration