Applies to: Office 365 for professionals and small businesses, Office 365 for enterprises, Live@edu
Topic last modified: 2013-01-10
A mail user represents someone with a user ID in your cloud-based organisation who doesn't have a mailbox in your cloud-based organisation.
Typically, you use mail users when your organisation uses both the cloud-based service and on-premises Microsoft Exchange. You create mail users in the cloud-based service to represent the mailboxes in the on-premises Exchange organisation. These mail users are visible in the shared address book as contacts. This makes it easy for users in the cloud-based service to communicate with users in the on-premises Exchange organisation.
A mail user with a user ID in your cloud-based organisation can access the Exchange Control Panel. For example, suppose you have a human resources officer with an on-premises mailbox who needs access to Multi-Mailbox Search in the Exchange Control Panel in your cloud-based organisation. You could create a mail user for this person, and then give the mail user access to Multi-Mailbox Search. For more information, see Give Users Access to Multi-Mailbox Search.
You have to use Windows PowerShell to create mail users. You can't use the Exchange Control Panel to create or manage mail users.
To learn how to install and configure Windows PowerShell and connect to the service, see Use Windows PowerShell.
Mail users have a primary email address just like mailboxes. When the mail user is selected as a recipient from the shared address book, the message is sent to the primary email address. However, mail users have an important email address parameter named ExternalEmailAddress that mailboxes do not have. The value you specify for the ExternalEmailAddress parameter is automatically used for the primary email address. However, if you manually modify the primary email address, changing the ExternalEmailAddress value will not automatically update the primary email address.
In Live@edu, mail users have the following characteristics:
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A mail user doesn't need a Windows Live ID associated with it. If you choose to create a mail user with a Windows Live ID, you can create the mail user and a new Windows Live ID at the same time, or you can attach an existing Windows Live ID that isn't already associated with another mailbox or mail user.
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For an existing mail user without a Windows Live ID, you can add a new Windows Live ID. You cannot attach an existing unassociated Windows Live ID.
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The Windows Live ID and all email addresses associated with the mail user must be in one of the accepted domains of your cloud-based organisation.
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When you delete a mail user with a Windows Live ID, you can't keep the Windows Live ID, and the Windows Live ID isn't recoverable.
Run the following command:
New-MailUser -Name <name> -WindowsLiveID <Windows Live ID> -Password (ConvertTo-SecureString -String '<password>' -AsPlainText -Force)
For example, to create a mail user named Laura Giussani, with the new Windows Live ID and email address lgiussani@contoso.edu, and the password Pa$$word1, run the following command:
New-MailUser -Name "Laura Giussani" -WindowsLiveID lgiussani@contoso.edu -Password (ConvertTo-SecureString -String 'Pa$$word1' -AsPlainText -Force)
Note In this example, the ExternalEmailAddress parameter is not used, so the email address used for the WindowsLiveID parameter is automatically used for the ExternalEmailAddress parameter. As explained earlier, the value of ExternalEmailAddress is automatically used for the primary email address of the mail user.
When you delete a mailbox and choose to keep the Windows Live ID, you end up with a Windows Live ID that isn't associated with a mailbox. You can create a new mail user and attach the unassociated Windows Live ID to it.
Run the following command:
For example, a user named Laura Giussani has the Windows Live ID lgiussani@contoso.edu that's not currently associated with a mailbox or a mail user. To create a new mail user for Laura and associate her Windows Live ID with the new mail user, run the following command:
A mail user without a Windows Live ID is similar to a mail contact. However, in Live@edu, a mail contact can't have an email address in an accepted domain of the cloud-based organisation.
Run the following command:
For example, to create a mail user named Laura Giussani with the email address lgiussani@contoso.edu, run the following command:
Run the following command:
Set-MailUser <Identity> -WindowsLiveID <Windows Live ID> -Password (ConvertTo-SecureString -String '<password>' -AsPlainText -Force)
For example, to add the Windows Live ID lgiussani@contoso.edu and the password Pa$$word1 to the existing mail user named Laura Giussani, run the following command:
Set-MailUser "Laura Giussani" -WindowsLiveID lgiussani@contoso.edu -Password (ConvertTo-SecureString -String 'Pa$$word1' -AsPlainText -Force)
Note Adding a Windows Live ID to an existing mail user doesn't change the primary email address. As explained earlier, the value of ExternalEmailAddress is automatically used for the primary email address of the mail user.
You use the CSV_Parser.ps1 Windows PowerShell script to create many mail users at one time by importing information about the mail users from a CSV file. For more information about how to download and use the script, see Create and Configure Recipients with the CSV_Parser.ps1 script.
In Microsoft Office 365, mail users have the following characteristics:
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A mail user always has a user ID associated with it. You can create a new user ID when you create the mail user.
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The user ID for the mail user must be in one of the accepted domains of the cloud-based organisation. However, all other email addresses associated with the mail user can be in any domain.
Run the following command:
New-MailUser -Name <name> -MicrosoftOnlineServicesID <user ID> -Password (ConvertTo-SecureString -String '<password>' -AsPlainText -Force)
For example, to create a mail user named Tamara Johnston, with the new user ID and email address tjohnston@fabrikam.com, and the password Pa$$word1, run the following command:
New-MailUser -Name "Tamara Johnston" -MicrosoftOnlineServicesID tjohnston@fabrikam.com -Password (ConvertTo-SecureString -String 'Pa$$word1' -AsPlainText -Force)
Note In this example, the ExternalEmailAddress parameter is not used, so the email address used for the MicrosoftOnlineServicesID parameter is automatically used for the ExternalEmailAddress parameter. As explained earlier, the value of ExternalEmailAddress is automatically used for the primary email address of the mail user.
