Exchange Server 2010 provides the capability to control where sent items are stored when they are sent by a delegate of a shared mailbox. This is useful for ensuring the copies of emails sent using either “Send as” or “Send on behalf” are stored in the mailbox that they are sent from, rather than only stored in the mailbox of the person who actually sent the email.
Sent Items configuration is also be available in Exchange Server 2013 Cumulative Update 9 or later, and Office 365. Refer to this article for more details.
To demonstrate this, consider the following scenario.
A shared mailbox named Marketing:
[PS] C:\>New-Mailbox -Shared "Marketing"
A user, Alan Reid, who has “Send As” rights for the Marketing mailbox:
[PS] C:\>Get-Mailbox "Marketing" | Add-ADPermission -User Alan.Reid -ExtendedRights "Send As"
For the purposes of this demonstration the term “shared mailbox” could refer to a generic mailbox such as “Marketing” or a mailbox such as an executive who has delegates.
Under the default behaviour, Alan sends an email from the Marketing mailbox.
The sent item is stored in Alan’s mailbox.
However a copy of the mail item is not in the Marketing mailbox Sent Items folder.
This is a problem for some organizations who want all shared mailbox sent items to be stored in the shared mailbox.
Note: This is fine for storage/filing purposes, but if you’re looking for auditing of shared mailbox usage a better approach is to use mailbox audit logging.
To configure the sent items behaviour for shared mailboxes we use the Set-MailboxSentItemsConfiguration cmdlet. This is available in Exchange Server 2010 SP3 but not yet available in Exchange Server 2013 at the time this article is being written.
There are two parameters we can use:
- -SendAsItemsCopiedTo
- -SendOnBehalfOfItemsCopiedTo
So we can configure “send as” and “send on behalf” behaviour separately.
There are two values we can use when configuring the sent items behaviour:
- Sender – messages are stored in the Sent Items folder of the user that send the message
- SenderAndFrom – messages are stored in both the Sent Items of the user who sent the message, and the Sent Items of the shared mailbox
There is an additional value of “From” that is reserved for future use.
To configure the Marketing mailbox we can run the following command in the Exchange Management Shell:
[PS] C:\>Set-MailboxSentItemsConfiguration "Marketing" -SendAsItemsCopiedTo:SenderAndFrom -SendOnBehalfOfItemsCopiedTo:SenderAndFrom
The change does not take effect immediately. In my test lab it took around 10 minutes before it began working.
Now when Alan Reid sends emails as the Marketing mailbox…
…they are stored in the Sent Items of the Marketing mailbox as well as his own.
I have a requirement of putting all internal emails sent by users to different folder “SentItem-Internal” and all internet emails such as @gmail in default “SentItems”.. how this can be configured
Hello Paul,
Is there any updates that only the sent items will saved in shared mailbox ONLY and not on both shared mailbox and user’s mailbox?
Hope to hear you soon. TIA
Hi Paul,
I would like to take this one step further;
We work with shared inboxes and we have made the setting to store the emails in the sent items folder of the shared inbox (DelegateSentItemsStyle = 1). However I would like to store the emails in the subfolder where the email is located that is used for replying / forwarding.
This is an easy setting for a private email, but our IT department cannot get it working for the shared inbox.
You have any idea if this is possible to setup?
I don’t know a way to make that happen. I suspect it can’t be done.
Hi Paul,
I have a question for you. There is scenario where some users are working in VDI machines. Their Outlook is configured without cached mode. (but obvious) They have multiple shared mailboxes configured using auto mapping. It is same case- for one of the shared mailboxes user can’t find Sent Item in Mailbox Sent Item Folder however it is seen under user’s Mailbox Sent Items folder. We checked all possible setting for all shared mailbox and found same settings but still only one shared mailbox has a problem rest are fine they can see email in Sent Item for others. Any idea?
They are using Outlook 2016 & their mailboxes are migrated from 2003 to Office365.
Great article, and does almost exactly what I need.. Just a quick question.. do replies to the sent email go to both accounts, or just the one actually sending the mail, and if so, for the latter part, is there any cmdlet to use that will sent the mail as the shared mailbox, not just copy the mail to the sent items?
Thanks
Bill
Replies will go to the send-as address (the shared mailbox). If you want to confirm this behaviour all you need to do is set up a test scenario and run through it.
If the user(delegate) send via smtp (authenticated) it doesn’t copies/store in the mailbox that they are sent from (shared).
Hi Paul,
I need to have the emails sent by an assistant in both Sent Inbox (Boss and assistant).
There is any way to do this in O365 Outlook 2016 ?
Right now the sent emails go to the assistant sent inbox only.
What we really want is to have the Sent items in the Boss Sent Inbox. Also the boss has many assistants.
There’s a link at the start of the article that will take you to the Office 365 instructions.
Hi Paul,
I am facing issue the other way around……
When I sent mail from a shared mail box…the mail appears only in Sent Items of the shared mail box and it does not appear or save in my personal profile sent items…
Is there some configuration that needs to be done for the same?
Have you added the shared mailbox as an additional mailbox in your account, or as a second *account* in Outlook?
Excellent article!
Do we know how using this cmdlet will impact the eventual migration from Exchange 2010 to 365? Can we safely assume whether or not it continues working, that it won’t cause additional problems?
Rather than assume anything, make it a test case during your project to see whether the configuration is preserved when you migrate the mailbox.
Sorry, this is an old thread. I have access to my bosses inbox (outlook 2016), but he wants me to also have access to his sent box – is this possible ?
Thanks in advance !
Sophie
Yes it is. Your boss can configure permissions on individual folders by using Outlook, or you (or your IT admin, if that’s not you) can configure the access instead.
I realize this thread is quite old but I am running in to issues getting this to work on Exchange 2016.
The mailbox is a shared mailbox, I have run:
set-mailbox sharedmailboxalias -MessageCopyForSentAsEnabled $true -MessagecopyForSendOnBehalfEnabled $true
However messages sent as the shared mailbox are not saved in the sent items folder of the shared mailbox.
The only way to get it to work is add the shared mailbox as an additional exchange account in Outlook (tried both Outlook 2013 and Outlook 2016)
Is there a delay in when that is configured before it takes effect?
Thank You.
Configuring Mailbox Sent Items Behaviour for Delegates and Shared Mailboxes
How we can do change the behavior on Outlook 2003
We’ve got this to work for shared mailboxes only (where you can get a copy in the sender and the shared mailbox sent items) by using
set-mailbox -identity xyz -messagecopyforsendasenabled $true -messagecopyforsendonbehalfenabled $true.
However, this ONLY works for shared mailboxes. Even though these fields exists for all mailboxes, if you run this command for a regular mailbox it will tell you it is shared only.
Our situation is we’ve got a chief exec mailbox and a PA mailbox. His PA wants to send mail (both send as and send on behalf of) but Cheif Exec needs to be able to see what was sent.
SEND AS is possible if you set up the Chief Exec as another email account in the email profile (rather than as an additional account to the main one).
SEND ON BEHALF does not. There seems to be no way for it to put the sent item in the main accounts sent items box.
Probably makes sense because, after all, the delegate user IS doing the sending. BUT its something the users had before and dont now.
It didn’t work for me on exchange 2013.
I got the error:
[PS] C:Windowssystem32>Get-Mailbox SharedMB | Set-Mailbox -MessageCopyForSentAsEnabled $true
A parameter cannot be found that matches parameter name ‘MessageCopyForSentAsEnabled’.
+ CategoryInfo : InvalidArgument: (:) [Set-Mailbox], ParameterBindingException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : NamedParameterNotFound,Set-Mailbox
+ PSComputerName : blue.moc.local
If you’re running Exchange 2013 you need to refer to this article instead:
https://www.practical365.com/managing-shared-mailbox-sent-items-behaviour-in-exchange-server-2013-and-office-365/
Hello Paul,
Thanks for the article. The cmdlet worked perfectly. May I ask if there is a similar cmdlet for Deleted items folder for a shared mailbox ?
No, there is not.
Hello,
for DeleteItems you can use registry settings like below
Outlook 2010
——————–
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Outlook\Options\General]
“DelegateWastebasketStyle”=dword:00000004
Outlook 2013
———————
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Outlook\Options\General]
“DelegateWastebasketStyle”=dword:00000004
In Citrix environment (Outlook running in Online mode), some users report that the sent mail shows up twice in the sent items of the shared mailbox instead of 1 copy each in shared mailbox and in user mailbox. Has anyone come across such an issue? Weird….
Hi Paul,
I have a strange variation of this problem.
The shared mailbox is located on a mail server in the UK, Full access and Send As rights granted to the users directly.
When users in the UK Send As, the sent mail is copied to both Sender and Shared mailbox. The problem I have is when our US colleagues Send As the shared mailbox, in this case the sent mail only appears in the Senders mailbox sent items and not the Shared mailbox’s.
We are running 2010SP2 RU4.
Any ideas??
Check that the user has cached mode enabled in Outlook.
Cache mode was enabled, but made no difference
I have resolved this another way now, I have added the Shared mailbox as a 2nd email account within the MAPI Profile, the user just has to remember to select this instead of excepting the default when sending mail or replying.
As they are in affect sending from the shared mailbox, this isn’t a send as so the sent item goes into the Shared mailbox sent items.
From Control Panel
Open Mail (32-bit)
Highlight Profile, select Properties
Select E-mail Accounts…
Select New… and complete with details of Shared mailbox.
Finish and close
Now when you click the From on the drop down both the User and Shared mailbox profiles are displayed.
This is more of a workaround than a fix, but it works and my user was happy 🙂
Paul,
A simular question to what Linda asked…
Business reason for delayed send and wanting it to go into the shared outbox; is a group of users work on ‘saved drafts’ , make a copy of the draft, paste it in the outbox, edits the draft, change the from address, place a delay on it and hit send. They need the messages in a common place all can access in case the send needs to be cancelled or re-edited before delivery. Right now the messages go to each individual’s outbox and is difficult to manage.
Thanks.
I have an issue where we have a shared mailbox where they set up delay delivery messages. The delay delivery goes into the person’s Outbox and not in the shared mailbox Outbox. Is there a way to have the delay delivery email go to the shared mailbox Outbox instead of the person’s Outbox? The set up is a group that has the members who are set as “send as” delegates for the Shared Mailbox. Outlook is in cached mode. Does anyone know if this is possible to have the delay delivery email go to the shared mailbox outbox instead of the person’s outbox?
I don’t think you can.
What is the business reason for the delayed send? Perhaps there is a better solution.
Hi Paul,
Any idea why I just get an error saying:
A parameter cannot be found that matches parameter name ‘MailboxSentItemsConfiguration’
?
Seems my PS does not recognize this command, So I am unable to change the sent items behaviour as I need to.
Many thanks
Get-MailboxSentItemsConfiguration is the cmdlet name. There’s no spaces in there. It sounds like you might have added a space by accident.
If you’re still having trouble please show the exact command you’re trying to run.
Since Exchange 2013 CU9, this functionality and command should be available/supported/implemented again, but.. I still get this error.
Get-MailboxSentItemsConfiguration : The term ‘Get-MailboxSentItemsConfiguration’ is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again.
Refer to the yellow box at the start of the article.
Is there a similar command to do the same thing for the Deleted Items folder? So far, I’ve only seen articles that discuss creating a registry key to change the behavior. That means I’d have to update the registry on every user of that shared mailbox. It would be nice to run a single command for the shared mailbox instead.
No there isn’t, unfortunately.
Yeh, arg! I is really late where I am at so I will blame it on that.
So we have quite a few accounts in the company and in some cases 1 person will manage up 15 accounts. I know that is strange but it is a great management tool. what we want to do is have all the sent items from account A to go into the account A sent folder and all the account B sent items go in the account B sent folder and so on, currently they all go in the person’s account mailbox sent folder not the account they are sending from and we would really like it if none of the sent items ended up in that login sent folder except when that person is sending from that account. (pardon my terminology) we have 50 or so accounts total to do this to, do I need to do this individually for each account?
Thanks,
You need to configure it one time on each mailbox.
Your options are to set it to Sender or SenderAndFrom. The option to store it in the From mailbox only is not yet available (I don’t know if it ever will be).
Paul;
This looks to do exactly what I want to do. this probably a stupid question. I have Exchange 2010 SP3 latest rev. running on SBS 2011 SP1. I am running PowerShell as administrator. but none of the commands work. it does not like Get-MailboxSentItemsConfiguration or Set-MailboxSentItemsConfiguration. it give the error that The Term ‘…’ is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, …
Have you opened PowerShell or the Exchange Management Shell?
ok thanks
Hi Paul
if i configure those 2 parameters today will I be able to see the sent items from past days?
Thanks
Fred
No.
does this work retroactively?
Thanks
What do you mean exactly?
Possible to do this for exchange 2007? or is there a workaround for it?
We have an awkward setup and basically there’s a scenario where when an email is sent by mailbox A, a copy of it needs to be saved on the sent items of mailboxes A and B. They are not shared at all. Is it somehow possible? Many thanks.
Not with this feature. You could use a Transport Rule to send a copy of all messages from Mailbox A to Mailbox B, and perhaps an inbox rule to move them to a different folder in Mailbox B.
But basically you’re describing a technical outcome whereas I’m sure there is an actual business requirement that you haven’t described. Knowing the actual business requirement for your scenario might help me suggest a technical solution.
Yeah, sorry for not being much insightful. Basically mailbox A is quite important and our customer wants a “live backup” of it which would be mailbox B. He has internal issues, and would like to refer to a backup that he can access by himself without referring to us.
Transport rule or a journaling system then.
Have the same issue. Exchange 2013 with Outlook 2010 clients. Shared mailbox with Send As access to the shared mailbox.
It is mandatory that mail messages send from the shared account appear in the shared account’s Sent Mail folder.
Do I have any recourse other than configuring an additional Exchange account and adding that account in Outlook for all other users?
Microsoft have just announced this week that the sent items configuration capability will be coming in Exchange 2013 CU9.
http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2015/03/03/want-more-control-over-sent-items-when-using-shared-mailboxes.aspx
This is only for shared mailboxes. Is there also a solution for a user mailbox which is used by several users with personal mailboxes?
For Exchange 2013 CU9 or Exchange Online the method is described in this article:
https://www.practical365.com/managing-shared-mailbox-sent-items-behaviour-in-exchange-server-2013-and-office-365/
It only works for shared mailboxes.
Thanks! I have been looking for this earlier but now I got a new request and found this article.
Works like a charm and is really usefull!
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In Outlook 2013 with Exchange 2013, just create a second e-mailaccount in Outlook and all sent items will go to the right folder.
You need full rights on the shared mailbox.
In Outlook, go to File -> Account Settings -> New
Fill in the emailaddress of the shared mailbox and click next.
Hi TopCat, You need cache enabled for it to work!
Hi,
Initially I had 2 users in my shared mailbox and after running the script both worked. However, subsequent users I have added do not work. I have run the script again but their sent items are not copied to the shared sent items. Any thoughts? Thanks
The users need to have Outlook in cached mode for it to work.
Thanks. Strangely out of 4 users, we have 2 with cached and 2 without…and yep the only 2 users who work dont have the cache ticked. I’ve unchecked the cache setting on the other 2 users and will leave for a day or two to see if it has any effect. Using Outlook 2003 btw. Tony
We have a problem where an email sent from a personal secondary account appears as a sent item in the both the secondary accounts (as it should) and in the primary account which is shared. People are able to read emails that should be private. All accounts are on the same server.
I’m confused. Why is the primary account the shared one?
The primary account is used to communicate with outsiders and people within the company and is accessible by the Personal Assistant. The private is used to communicate between the partners and has confidential emails that should not be read by others. Hence the need to ensure the emails only appear in the account that sends the emails.
Does it not work if Information Store service is not restarted? Or would it automatically start working after 24 hours after the configuration changes are made on the shared mailbox?
It does not work for us.
Check that the client is configured to use Cached Mode.
Or you can open the shared mailbox in Outlook Web Access and go to Options, settings and then sent items and you can set where the sent items are saved from the drop down boxes there.
Roddy
Thanks Guys,
Thanks for the feedback. I’ll check those things out and feedback ASAP.
Chris
Hi Paul,
Great write up! Implemented the commands you stated and now able to get e-mail showing in sent items of sender and shared mailbox. One strange issue though – Its does not work for all e-mails. Some e-mails still get ‘stuck’ in the Outbox of shared mailbox. They actually get through to recipient OK but looking at Outlook you would think they had not sent. Any ideas?
Thanks
Do they still seem to be stuck in Outbox when you look in OWA?
Thanks Paul, nice clear article. Seems odd to me that you cannot just have sent items stored in the shared inbox. We will end up with 2 copies of every email sent from the shared mailbox.
Chris, I also had this problem. I discovered that mails got stuck when the manually mailbox was added manually in the Outlook profile; File -> Account Settings -> Account Settings -> E-mail accounts.
When I gave the delegate full access to the shared mailbox with Add-Mailboxpermissions, so that Automapping is occurring, the mail didn’t got stuck anymore in the Outbox.
I also worked when I added the delegate to the shared mailbox through File -> Account Settings -> Delegate Access , and after manually adding the mailbox to the account through File -> Account Settings -> Account Settings -> E-mail accounts -> (highlight the exchange account and click Change) -> More Settings -> Advanced -> Add (the shared mailbox).
It looks like Exchange messes up with permission sets ( putting sent E-mails in the wrong Outbox ), although I cannot proof it.
Paul, do you know if it’s possible to save the mail only in the sent items folder of the shared mailbox, instead of in both the delegate’ and shared mailbox?
No it is not possible.
Thanks Paul, nice clear article. Seems odd to me that you cannot just have sent items stored in the shared inbox. We will end up with 2 copies of every email sent from the shared mailbox.
Hi,
Do you know when the cmdlet “Get-MailboxSentItemsConfiguration” will be available for Exchange 2013?
We have the same problem, if you use the registry change “DelegateSentItemsStyle” set to “1” on the client it works only if they are running in cache mode – doesn’t work in Online mode.
The sent item just stays in the outbox.
Cheers
Laurence
I haven’t seen any announcements on when it will come back, if ever.
Hey Guys!
I get an error message trying to run the Set-MailboxSentItemsConfiguration
am I doing something wrong?
http://s17.postimg.org/w0mirgx3j/Capture.png
We have been saving emails in the sent items folder of a shared mailbox for several years using domain policy and groups to set Outlook to do it, by setting the “DelegateSentItemsStyle”. We are currently in Office 2010 Exchange 2007 and are going to Exchange 2013.
Current testing in 2013 is not going well for our previous solution. My question is: Should I turn off all of the Outlook policy setting to make your solution work?
Peace
As far as I know no method of managing sent items for shared mailboxes works with Exchange 2013.
Nice writeup Paul! One caveat though….this behavior you describe only applies provided the rights (Send As, Full Access etc.) are explicitly assigned.
In our organization, these rights are assigned by virtue of membership in security groups – and we could not get the above configuration to work. Do you see the same behavior?
I tested your scenario and it seems to work fine in my environment. A user who is a member of a group that has Send As rights, sends as the shared mailbox, and the sent item is stored in both sender and from mailboxes.
That is strange. I thought what I am seeing is normal behavior as per Microsoft.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2632409
See the following from the above article,
The SendAsItemsCopiedTo and SendOnbehalfofItemsCopiedTo settings are applied only if SendAs or SendOnBehalfOf rights are assigned to a specific user directly. If the SendAs or SendOnBehalfOf right is assigned to a distribution group, the sent item will be put in the sender’s Sent Items folder only.
Yeah interesting. It works for me using a Universal Security Group. If I then mail-enable the group (and wait a few hours) it still works. So my assumption with their reference to “Distribution Group” is that they mean non-Security groups, which makes sense.
Which Service Pack and Update Rollup are you running? I’m on SP3+UR5.
Hello!
Did you get this to work with SendOnBehalfOf right assigned to a Universal Security Group?
I’m using Exhange 2010 and latest SP and CU.
Hi Paul,
Deleted email from shared mailbox show under delegates deleted items folder and not in the shared mailbox deleted items. Is there a fix for this issue?
Thanks for Sent Items fix.
Configuring Mailbox Sent Items Behaviour for Delegates and Shared Mailboxes
.Set-MailboxSentItemsConfiguration “MAILBOX NAME” –SendAsItemsCopiedTo:SenderAndFrom –SendOnBehalfOfItemsCopiedTo:SenderAndFrom
Regards
MK
You’re a rock star!! I was looking how to deal with this behaviour, you made my day!, thank you
Thanks
very interesting
This is a better method than having to add the mailbox as an additional exchange account in outlook 2010 (with different credentials) which I have used in the past to overcome the same issue
Good article Paul.
I was about to do a write up on my blog about this and how also this functionality hasn’t been carried across to exchange 2013 yet.
There is a workaround from the client side that requires the registry setting along with outlook being in cached mode, but it is unfortunate to not see this native to exchange 2013 (yet). It was another one of those ‘oh’ moments during the migration planning.
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