Note
Access to this page requires authorization. You can try signing in or changing directories.
Access to this page requires authorization. You can try changing directories.
As the admin of an organization, you can manage user email settings in Microsoft 365 to control mailbox permissions, email forwarding, automatic replies, and more. This article explains how to configure these settings for your users.
Activate an existing business email address
If you already registered a business email domain and need to activate email in Microsoft 365, use the setup flow first. After setup is complete, return to this article to manage mailbox settings.
- Add and verify your domain by following Add a custom domain to Microsoft 365.
- Add users and assign licenses by following Add users and assign licenses.
- Sign in to Outlook by following Set up Outlook for Microsoft 365 for business email.
Manage email settings
- Go to Microsoft 365 admin center.
- Go to Users > Active users and select the user for whom you want to manage email settings.
- In the new pane, select Mail to manage email settings.
Summary of email settings in Microsoft 365
This table explains the various email settings you can change for a user in Microsoft 365.
| Mail setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Mailbox permissions | Read and manage permissions - Set whether people can read and manage other people's mailboxes. You can also set Send as permissions and Send on behalf of permissions for a person. For more details, see Give mailbox permissions to another user in Microsoft 365 - Admin Help. |
| Email apps | Choose the apps a user can use to access their Microsoft email. |
| Show in global address list | Enable or disable the visibility of the user's mailbox in the organization's address list. |
| Email forwarding | Add a forwarding email address to a user. Use this feature if the person has multiple email addresses and they want to receive emails at all their email addresses. For more details, see Configure email forwarding in Microsoft 365. |
| Automatic replies | Set an automatic reply when someone sends an email to the person's email address. Use this feature if an employee leaves your company and you want to let the email sender know. |
| More actions | Convert to shared mailbox - Convert the user's mailbox to a shared mailbox. Use this feature if the person leaves your organization and you want to keep their mailbox data around for a while. For more information, see Convert a user mailbox to a shared mailbox and Open and use a shared mailbox. Edit Exchange properties - Manage other Exchange Online tasks by using the Exchange admin center. Read about managing user mailboxes in Exchange Online. You can turn on Manage litigation hold when you want to retain user mailbox data. Users can purge items from their mailbox, but Microsoft 365 still retains those items. |
Note
You can only manage email apps for mailboxes that are hosted fully in Microsoft 365. You can't use this feature to manage email apps for mailboxes that are hosted on-premises.