User mailboxes are Exchange mailboxes that are associated with people, typically one mailbox per person. Each user mailbox has an associated Active Directory account that gives the person access to the mailbox to send and receive email messages and create meetings and appointments.

Create user mailboxes

The procedures in this section describe how to create a new mailbox and the associated Active Directory user account.

Use the EAC to create user mailboxes

1. In the EAC, go to Recipients > Mailboxes.

2. Click New (+) and then select User mailbox.

In the EAC, click Recipients, Mailboxes, New, keywords: Exchange create mailbox

3. Note: A linked mailbox is a local mailbox that's associated with a user account in a different (trusted) Active Directory forest. For more information, see Manage linked mailboxes.

4. On the New user mailbox page, configure the following settings. Settings marked with an asterisk (*) are required.

Alias
Existing user or New user: Select New user.
First name
Initials
Last name
* Display name: By default, this field is populated with the names you enter in the First name, Initials, and Last name fields, but you can override it. The maximum length is 256 characters.
* Name: By default, this field is populated with the names you enter in the First name, Initials, and Last name field, but you can override it. The maximum length is 64 characters, and the value must be unique in your organization.
Organizational unit: Typically, the default location for the user account is the Users container. To change it, click Browse and select the OU or container where you want to create the account.
* User logon name: This is the Active Directory user account that's created and associated with the mailbox.

6. Notes:

Don't use apostrophes (') or quotation marks ("). Although these characters are allowed, they might cause problems later (for example, assigning access permissions to the mailbox).
If this value is different from the Alias value, the user's email address and account name will be different (important if the email domain and the Active Directory domain are the same).
* New Password: Verify the value complies with your organization's password length, complexity, and history requirements.
* Confirm password
Require password change on next logon: Select this check box to force the user to change the initial password when they first sign in to the mailbox.

7. You can click Save to create the mailbox and the associated Active Directory user account, or you can click More options to configure the following additional settings:

Mailbox database: Click Browse to select the mailbox database that holds the mailbox.
Create an on-premises archive mailbox for this user: Select this check box to create an archive mailbox for the mailbox, and then click Browse to select the mailbox database that holds the archive mailbox. Items are automatically moved from the primary mailbox to the archive based on the retention policy settings. For more information, see In-Place Archiving in Exchange Server.
Address book policy: ABPs define a global address list (GAL), an offline address book (OAB), a room list, and a set of address lists. An ABP gives the user access to a customized GAL in Outlook and Outlook on the web. For more information, see Address book policies in Exchange Server.

8. When you're finished, click Save.

Use the Exchange Management Shell to create user mailboxes

To create a user mailbox in the Exchange Management Shell, use the following syntax:

Copy-paste:
New-Mailbox -Name <Name> -UserPrincipalName <UPN> -Password (ConvertTo-SecureString -String '<Password>' -AsPlainText -Force) [-Alias <Alias>] [-FirstName <FirstName>] [-LastName <LastName>] [-DisplayName <DisplayName>] -[OrganizationalUnit <OU>]

This example creates a new mailbox and Active Directory user account for Pilar Pinilla with the following settings:

Required parameters:
- Name: Pilar Pinilla. This value is also used for the display name, because we aren't using the DisplayName parameter.
- UserPrincipalName: The Active Directory account name is pilarp@contoso.com.
- Password: Pa$$word1
Optional parameters:
- FirstName: Pilar
- LastName: Pinilla

The alias value is pilarp because we aren't using the Alias parameter, and pilarp is taken from the UserPrincipalName parameter value.

Copy-Paste

New-Mailbox -Name "Pilar Pinilla" -UserPrincipalName pilarp@contoso.com -Password (ConvertTo-SecureString -String 'Pa$$word1' -AsPlainText -Force) -FirstName Pilar -LastName Pinilla

For detailed syntax and parameter information, see New-Mailbox

How do you know this worked?

To verify that you've successfully created a user mailbox, use either of the following procedures:

In the EAC, go to Recipients > Mailboxes, and verify that the mailbox is displayed in the list.
In the Exchange Management Shell, replace <Name> with the Name parameter value that you used, and run the following command:
Copy

Get-Mailbox -Identity <Name> | Format-List Name,DisplayName,Alias,PrimarySmtpAddress,Database

Create mailboxes for existing user accounts

When you mailbox-enable a user account, you can only select the existing Active Directory users that aren't already mail-enabled (no mail users or accounts that already have an associated mailbox).

Use the EAC to create mailboxes for existing user accounts

In the EAC, go to Recipients > Mailboxes.
Click New (+) and then select User mailbox.

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