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Retirement of site mailboxes

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The site mailboxes are being retired and will be out of service and/or removed. Please use the following instructions to identify, backup, and delete site mailboxes.

To view a list of site mailboxes

Run the following command in Exchange PowerShell:

Get-SiteMailbox -BypassOwnerCheck -ResultSize Unlimited | ft Name, WhenCreated, ClosedTime, SharePointUrl -AutoSize

The 'create' date shows the recently created site mailboxes. The 'ClosedTime' in the output of 'Get-SiteMailbox' refers to the status of the associated SharePoint site. The companies set a SharePoint policy to close sites after a period of time or provide users permission to close the sites. Closing the site generally means it is out of service. Closed site mailboxes are removed from view in the Outlook desktop client, but they are available in the Outlook Web Access.

For more information see, Use policies for site closure and deletion.

To identify active site mailboxes

Run the following command in Exchange PowerShell:

# If you run this more than once, delete/rename the output file first because this command appends to it.
# This is a single, long command line. It could take minutes or hours depending on the number of site mailboxes; thus, the countdown.
$sms = Get-SiteMailbox -BypassOwnerCheck -ResultSize unlimited;$count = $sms.Count; $sms | %{ $count-- ; echo "$count";Get-MailboxFolderStatistics $_.Identity -FolderScope Inbox | sort LastModifiedTime -Descending | ft Identity,LastModifiedTime >> c:\temp\sitemailboxes.txt};Write-Host "Open file c:\temp\sitemailboxes.txt to check the result"

There are no commands to show if the site mailboxes are still active. The above example lists the number of site mailboxes that were recently updated. The details of the site mailboxes are stored in a file.

Note

The processing time varies based on the number of site mailboxes. You can open the 'sitemailboxes.txt' to view the result of the command.

To Identify the owners of site mailboxes

Run the following command in Exchange PowerShell:

Get-SiteMailbox -BypassOwnerCheck -ResultSize unlimited | ft Name, Owners

Export site mailboxes through PST (Manually)

You must have Microsoft 365 admin permissions to access the Microsoft Purview compliance portal.

For more information, see Permissions and sharing.

  1. Go to https://compliance.microsoft.com/ and sign in with an account that has admin permissions for your organization.

  2. In the Microsoft Purview compliance portal Home page, navigate to Show all > eDiscovery > Core.

    The eDiscovery (Standard) page is displayed.

  3. Click Create a case.

  4. In New case details pane, enter the following details:

    • Enter the Case name (mandatory).
    • Enter the Case description (optional).

  5. Click Save.

  6. Select the case that you saved from the list view and click to open the case.

    The case opens in a new window.

  7. Click Search > +Guided search.

    The New Search details pane is displayed.

  8. In the New search details pane, under the following tabs:

    1. In Name your search tab, do the following:

      1. Enter the Name (mandatory).

      2. Enter Description (optional).

      3. Click Next.

    2. In Choose Locations tab, do the following:

      1. Select Specific locations.

      2. In Location, click Choose users, groups, or team.

        The Edit locations window is displayed.

      3. In Edit locations window, under Exchange email, click Choose users, groups, or team.

      4. Enter the name of the site mailbox to be exported.

      5. Check the confirmation box to ensure the site mailbox is added.

      6. Click Choose and then click Done.

      7. Under SharePoint sites option, click Choose sites to add the SharePoint site associated with the site mailbox.

      8. To find the SharePoint URL for the site mailbox, run the following command in PowerShell:

        Get-SiteMailbox -BypassOwnerCheck -ResultSize unlimited

      9. Enter the URL and check the confirmation box to ensure the URL is added.

      10. Click Choose and then click Done.

      11. Click Next.

    3. In Create query tab, click Finish.

      Note

      Leave the Condition card blank to ensure the entire mailbox content is searched. The search will take a while based on the amount of content.

  9. Once the search is complete, click More > Export results.

    The Export results window is displayed.

  10. Select the appropriate options and click Export.

    Note

    The export wizard takes a few minutes to launch the Export window.

  11. In the Export window, under the Export key section, click Copy to clipboard.

  12. Click Download results.

  13. In the dialog box, click Open.

    Note

    This will launch the Microsoft Office 365 eDiscovery Export Tool to export the mailbox to PST.

  14. Click Install to install the Export Tool to export the mailbox to PST.

  15. Paste the Export key, provide the location to save the PST file locally and then click Start.

    Note

    The export will take a while based on the size of the PST file.

  16. Click Close.

    The PST can be now attached in Outlook.

Note

  • Folders with no email items inside them will not be exported.
  • The site mailboxes contain a special folder named, "Documents", of type IPF.ShortcutFolder. This contains "links" to files that are on SP sites. The actual SP files must be exported using eDiscovery for SP sites.
  • Outlook shows the items inside the Documents folder as unsafe, this is an expected behavior.
  • The document attachments in the emails of Documents folders are just placeholders, the actual documents are stored in SharePoint.

Export site mailboxes to PST (using script)

  1. Copy process-site-mailboxes.ps1 to a working directory.

  2. Start Windows PowerShell in administrator mode.

    For more information see, Microsoft 365 admin permissions.

    Note

    Ensure you have admin permissions for the following roles:

    • Compliance Administrator
    • eDiscovery Manager
    • Organization Management

  3. Run the script 'process-site-mailboxes.ps1' in PowerShell.

  4. Enter the admin username and password when prompted.

  5. You can review the list of site mailboxes by opening 'SiteMailboxesList.csv' file on a working directory, when it prompts you to review the file.

  6. Remove any site mailbox(es) from the list which you would not like to back up.

  7. Save 'SiteMailboxesList.csv', after reviewing it.

  8. Press 'y' when prompted "Do you like to proceed further? (Y/N)" to continue.

  9. Once you get "Mailboxes content search are complete" message on your screen, access the export results created for each mailbox by going to the Microsoft Purview compliance portal.

    Note

    Use Compliance center dashboard to download PST messages on your screen.

Note

  • Folders with no email items inside them will not be exported.
  • The site mailboxes contain a special folder named, "Documents", of type IPF.ShortcutFolder. This contains "links" to files that are on SP sites. The actual SP files must be exported using eDiscovery for SP sites.
  • Outlook shows the items inside the Documents folder as unsafe, this is an expected behavior.
  • The document attachments in the emails of Documents folders are just placeholders, the actual documents are stored in SharePoint.

Import site mailboxes

For the site mailboxes to be accessible again for site owners, import the PST files to a mailbox. See one of the following topics for detailed, step-by-step instructions for bulk-importing your organization's PST files to Office 365.

Use Exchange Web Services (EWS) APIs to extract mailbox content

You can also export and import site mailboxes using EWS APIs like any other mailbox. Exporting and importing of appointments, emails, contacts, tasks, and other mailbox items can be done by using the EWS-Managed API or EWS in Exchange.

For more information see, Exporting and importing items by using EWS in Exchange.

See one of the following topics for exporting and importing of mailbox content:

To remove the site mailboxes

Use one of the following options:

Option 1: Hiding the mailbox from a SharePoint site.

You can hide the site mailbox by removing it from the SharePoint site but it will still exist in Exchange. You can access the mailbox through Outlook Web Access if the browser is bookmarked.

  1. Navigate to the SharePoint site from which you want to hide the mailbox.

  2. Click Settings > Site contents.

  3. Under Lists, Libraries, and other APPs, point to Site Mailbox, and then click ... for more information.

  4. Click Remove and then click OK to remove the site mailbox app.

    Note

    If you remove a mailbox from a site, it won't be displayed on the site, but it will still be visible in Outlook (if you're using Exchange).

What else do I need to know?

There are a couple of things worth noting about removing a site mailbox:

  • The only way to fully delete a site mailbox is to delete the entire site itself. When a site is closed or deleted (either manually, or by following site closure policies), the site mailbox is also closed or deleted.

  • After removing the site mailbox app from a site, mail sent to the mailbox will still be stored. If you add the mailbox back to the site later, any mail sent to the site mailbox since it was originally created will still be there.

Option 2: Delete the SharePoint site.

If the SharePoint site is deleted, Exchange is notified to also delete the site mailbox.

  1. Navigate to the SharePoint site you want to delete.

  2. Select Settings at the top of the site and then click Site information.

    Note

    If you do not see Site information in the Settings panel, work with your SharePoint Administrator to get access.

  3. At the bottom of the Site Information panel, select Delete site.

  4. Check the confirmation box, and then click Delete.

Option 3: Delete the site mailbox manually.

For example, run the following command in Exchange PowerShell:

Get-Mailbox MDEL:* | ?{$_.RecipientTypeDetails -eq "TeamMailbox"} | Remove-Mailbox -Confirm:$false

Use Remove-Mailbox to delete a site mailbox. The system removes the site mailbox link from the SharePoint site when a site mailbox is deleted. In the example, change the 'MDEL' to the name of the site mailbox you want to delete.