Exchange 2007 Shared Mailbox: How to Create One

Creating a shared mailbox in Exchange Server 2007 is done through the Exchange Management Shell (EMS) rather than a wizard in the Exchange Management Console — the console is only used afterward, to manage permissions once the mailbox exists.

Before You Start

Gather the following:

• The name for the shared mailbox
• The Organizational Unit it should live in
• The mailbox database (and server, if you have multiple) it should be created on
• The User Principal Name (UPN) for the mailbox’s disabled account

The Command

New-Mailbox -Name:"Shared Mailbox" -OrganizationalUnit:"DOMAINOU" -Database:"Mailbox Database" -UserPrincipalName:"[email protected]" -Shared

Running this creates the mailbox and a corresponding disabled Active Directory account in the specified OU — don’t delete this account, since it’s what the mailbox is anchored to. Once created, the mailbox appears in the Exchange Management Console, where you can assign Full Access and Send As permissions to the people who need to use it.

Creating a Shared Mailbox in Exchange Online Today

If you’re working in a modern Microsoft 365/Exchange Online tenant rather than on-premises Exchange 2007, the process is considerably simpler since there’s no OU or Active Directory account to think about at all. Connect with Connect-ExchangeOnline, then run:

New-Mailbox -Shared -Name "Sales Department" -DisplayName "Sales Department" -Alias Sales -PrimarySmtpAddress [email protected]

-Shared is a switch, not a value — its presence alone tells Exchange Online to create a shared mailbox rather than a regular user mailbox. There’s no -OrganizationalUnit parameter in EXO (the cloud doesn’t have OUs) and no separate UPN to set up; the mailbox is created as an unlicensed, sign-in-disabled object automatically. A cloud-specific mailbox is free to run up to 50GB of storage without any licence assigned — beyond that you’d need Exchange Online Plan 2, or Plan 1 plus the Exchange Online Archiving add-on. Once created, grant access the same way as on-prem with Add-MailboxPermission -AccessRights FullAccess, bearing in mind this auto-maps the mailbox into each granted user’s Outlook by default (add -AutoMapping $false if you don’t want that).

Resources

• Exchange
• Active Directory