Manage Forward Mail with PowerShell | Office 365

In the current article, we review the use of the Forward email PowerShell command in Office 365 and Exchange Online environment.

Introduction

Forward email rule as the name implies, enable to forward automatically each email that sent to a particular mailbox to an additional email address.

The “Destination recipient” (E-mail address) could be “internal Mailbox” meaning a recipient from our organization or external recipient, meaning – recipient doesn’t belong to the organization (there is a different PowerShell Parameter for each of the options).

An additional parameter is an option of leaving a copy of the email in the source recipient mailbox or just forward the email message.

In this article, we will demonstrate a couple of scenarios for Mail Forwarding:

1. Mail forwarding to an internal recipient: John and Suzan are recipients who belong to the office 365 domain name o365info.com.
2. Mail forwarding to External recipient: John wants to forward each mail he gets to an external email address DavidWilkins@hotmail.com.
3. Additional scenarios are: Mail Forwarding in Bulk mode – the option of forwarding email to a destination email address for all the office 365 users and a nice trick of email forwarding that will implement for external contact object.

Connect to Exchange Online PowerShell

To be able to run the PowerShell commands specified in the current article, you will need to connect to Exchange Online PowerShell.

Start Windows PowerShell as administrator and run the cmdlet Connect-ExchangeOnline.

Connect-ExchangeOnline

1. Set mail forwarding

ADMIN Forwarding (ForwardingAddress)

ADMIN Forwarding (ForwardingAddress) – Forward Email to Recipient & SAVE local copy (Default)

PowerShell command syntax:

Set-Mailbox -ForwardingAddress

PowerShell command example:

Set-Mailbox "Angelina" -ForwardingAddress "Jacob.Peters@o365info.com"

ADMIN Forwarding (ForwardingAddress) – Forward Email to Recipient DONT SAVE a local copy

PowerShell command syntax:

Set-Mailbox -ForwardingAddress -DeliverToMailboxAndForward $False

PowerShell command example:

Set-Mailbox "Angelina" -ForwardingAddress "Jacob.Peters@o365info.com" -DeliverToMailboxAndForward $False

USER Forwarding (ForwardingsmtpAddress)

Admin Forwarding (ForwardingsmtpAddress) – Forward Email to Recipient & SAVE local copy (Default)

PowerShell command syntax:

Set-Mailbox -ForwardingsmtpAddress

PowerShell command example:

Set-Mailbox "Angelina" -ForwardingsmtpAddress "Jacob.Peters@o365info.com"

Admin Forwarding (ForwardingsmtpAddress) – Forward Email to Recipient DONT SAVE a local copy

PowerShell command syntax:

Set-Mailbox -ForwardingsmtpAddress -DeliverToMailboxAndForward $False

PowerShell command example:

Set-Mailbox "Angelina" -ForwardingsmtpAddress "Jacob.Peters@o365info.com" -DeliverToMailboxAndForward $False

Create External contact with internal email address + Forward email address (External Email Address)

Step 1: Create External contact with External email address.

PowerShell command syntax:

New-MailContact -Name "Display Name" -ExternalEmailAddress "External Recipient Email Address"

PowerShell command example:

New-MailContact -Name "David Wilkins" -ExternalEmailAddress "DavidWilkins@hotmail.com"

Step 2: Set External contact email address to internal email address and forwarding email address (External email address).

PowerShell command syntax:

New-MailContact "Display Name" -EmailAddresses "SMTP:<Office 365 User Email Address>,<External Recipient Email Address>"

PowerShell command example:

Set-MailContact "David Wilkins" -EmailAddresses "SMTP:David.Wilkins@o365info.com,DavidWilkins@hotmail.com"

2. Display information about Specific Mailbox Forwarding settings

PowerShell command syntax:

Get-Mailbox | FL DeliverToMailboxAndForward,ForwardingAddress,ForwardingSmtpAddress

PowerShell command example:

Get-Mailbox "Jacob.Peters@o365info.com" | FL DeliverToMailboxAndForward,ForwardingAddress,ForwardingSmtpAddress

Find all Recipients (Display list) with ADMIN Forwarding or USER Forwarding

PowerShell command example:

Get-Mailbox -ResultSize Unlimited | Where {($_.ForwardingAddress -ne $Null) -or ($_.ForwardingsmtpAddress -ne $Null)} | Select Name, ForwardingAddress, ForwardingsmtpAddress, DeliverToMailboxAndForward

3. Disable (remove) E-mail Forwarding option

Disable (cancel) ADMIN Forwarding (ForwardingAddress) Specific MAILBOX

PowerShell command syntax:

Set-Mailbox -ForwardingAddress $Null

PowerShell command example:

Set-Mailbox "Jacob.Peters@o365info.com" -ForwardingAddress $Null

Disable (cancel) USER Forwarding (ForwardingsmtpAddress) Specific MAILBOX

PowerShell command syntax:

Set-Mailbox -ForwardingSmtpAddress $Null

PowerShell command example:

Set-Mailbox "Jacob.Peters@o365info.com" -ForwardingSmtpAddress $Null

Disable (cancel) ADMIN Forwarding (ForwardingAddress) ALL MAILBOXES (BULK mode)

PowerShell command example:

Get-Mailbox -ResultSize Unlimited| Where-Object {($_.ForwardingAddress -ne $Null) } | Set-Mailbox -ForwardingAddress $Null

Disable (cancel) USER Forwarding (ForwardingsmtpAddress) ALL MAILBOXES (BULK mode)

PowerShell command example:

Get-Mailbox -ResultSize Unlimited | Where-Object {($_.ForwardingsmtpAddress -ne $Null) } | Set-Mailbox -ForwardingsmtpAddress $Null

4. Export information about forwarding settings

Export information about USER Forwarding rule

Export to CSV file.

PowerShell command example:

Get-Mailbox -ResultSize Unlimited | Where-Object {($_.ForwardingsmtpAddress -ne $Null) } | Select-Object DisplayName,Alias, PrimarySmtpAddress, ForwardingAddress, ForwardingsmtpAddress, DeliverToMailboxAndForward, RecipientType,RecipientTypeDetails | Export-CSV C:\TEMP\"All Recipents that have USER Forwarding(ForwardingsmtpAddress).CSV" -NoTypeInformation -Encoding UTF8

Export information about ADMIN Forwarding rule

Export to CSV file.

PowerShell command example:

$fwds = Get-Mailbox -ResultSize Unlimited | Where-Object { $_.ForwardingAddress -ne $null } | Select-Object DisplayName,Alias, name, ForwardingAddress
; foreach ($fwd in $fwds) {$fwd | add-member -membertype noteproperty -name "ContactAddress" -value (get-contact $fwd.ForwardingAddress).WindowsEmailAddress} ; $fwds | Export-CSV C:\TEMP\"All Recipents that have Admin Forwarding(ForwardingAddress).CSV" -NoTypeInformation -Encoding UTF8

Export information about User inbox Forwarding rule

Export to CSV file.

PowerShell command example:

$UserInboxRule = ForEach ($i in (Get-Mailbox -ResultSize Unlimited)) {Get-InboxRule -Mailbox $i.DistinguishedName | Where-Object {$_.ForwardTo} | fl MailboxOwnerID,Name,ForwardTo,Description} $UserInboxRule | Out-File C:\TEMP\"User inbox Forwarding rule.txt" -Encoding UTF8

5. Forward Email of ALL Users to Additional email address (Bulk mode)

Forward Email of ALL Users to internal Recipient & save local copy

Step 1. Save local copy.

PowerShell command syntax:

Get-Mailbox | Where {$_.RecipientType -eq "UserMailbox"} | Set-Mailbox -DeliverToMailboxAndForward $True

Step 2. Forward email to the destination recipient (internal\organization recipient).

PowerShell command syntax:

Get-Mailbox | Where {$_.RecipientType -eq "UserMailbox"} | Set-Mailbox -DeliverToMailboxAndForward $True

PowerShell command example:

Get-Mailbox | Where {$_.RecipientType -eq "UserMailbox"} | Set-Mailbox -ForwardingAddress Suzan@o365info.com

Forward Email of ALL Users to External Recipient & save local copy

Step 1. Save local copy.

PowerShell command syntax:

Get-Mailbox | Where {$_.RecipientType -eq "UserMailbox"}| Set-Mailbox -DeliverToMailboxAndForward $True

PowerShell command example:

Get-Mailbox | Where {$_.RecipientType -eq "UserMailbox"}| Set-Mailbox -DeliverToMailboxAndForward $True

Step 2. Forward email to the destination recipient (internal\organization recipient).

PowerShell command syntax:

Get-Mailbox | Where {$_.RecipientType -eq "UserMailbox"}| Set-Mailbox -ForwardingSmtpAddress <External Recipient Email Address>

PowerShell command example:

Get-Mailbox | Where {$_.RecipientType -eq "UserMailbox"} | Set-Mailbox -ForwardingSmtpAddress Suzan@hotmail.com

Forward Email to External Recipient & save local copy | import from CSV File

Scenario 1:

Step 1. Enable the option DeliverToMailboxAndForward.

$Mailboxes= Import-CSV C:\Temp\Users.csv 
ForEach ($Mailbox in $Mailboxes) 
{Set-Mailbox $Mailbox.users -DeliverToMailboxAndForward $True}

Step 2. Forward email to the destination recipient (internal\organization recipient).

$Mailboxes= Import-CSV C:\Temp\Users.csv 
ForEach ($Mailbox in $Mailboxes)
{Set-Mailbox $Mailbox.users -ForwardingAddress Suzan@o365info.com}

CSV file example:

Scenario 2:

Enable the option DeliverToMailboxAndForward.

Import-CSV "C:\Temp\Users.csv" | % { $_.Condition = [bool]($_.Condition -as [int]); $_ } | ForEach {Set-Mailbox -Identity $_.mailbox -ForwardingAddress $_.forwardto -Delivertomailboxandforward $_.Condition}

CSV file example: