The default Global Address List in an Exchange 2007 or Exchange 2010 organization includes all mail-enabled objects. It does this using the following recipient filter:
((Alias -ne $null) -and (((((((((((ObjectClass -eq 'user') -or (ObjectClass -eq 'contact '))) -or (ObjectClass -eq 'msExchSystemMailbox'))) -or (ObjectClass -eq 'msExchDynamicDi stributionList'))) -or (ObjectClass -eq 'group'))) -or (ObjectClass -eq 'publicFolder')) ))
You can see that the following object classes are included:
- User
- Contact
- System Mailbox
- Dynamic Distribution Group
- Group
- Public Folder
In some environments it may be desirable to exclude Mail Users. Mail Users are similar to Contacts in that they do not have a mailbox in the local Exchange organization, however unlike Contacts they do have a user account in Active Directory.
In other words, Mail Users are mail-enabled user objects that use an external email service.
Mail Users are displayed in the same area of the Exchange Management Console as regular Contacts, which may lead you to think that excluding them from the Global Address List is as simple as removing this part of the recipient filter:
-or ObjectClass -eq ‘Contact’
However that is not correct, and will not remove Mail Users from the Global Address List. To understand how to actually do this take a closer look at the attributes of a Mailbox User and a Mail User.
[PS] C:\>get-mailbox "John Smith" | fl objectclass, recipienttype
ObjectClass : {top, person, organizationalPerson, user}
RecipientType : UserMailbox
[PS] C:\>get-mailuser "Peter Banes" | fl objectclass, recipienttype
ObjectClass : {top, person, organizationalPerson, user}
RecipientType : MailUser
Notice that both are the same ObjectClass of ‘user’, which would still be included in the recipient filter if you were to simply remove the ‘Contact’ object class.
Instead, to remove Mail Users from the Global Address List you should exclude them by Recipient Type. You can do this by including the following condition in your recipient filter:
RecipientType -ne ‘MailUser’
For example:
Set-GlobalAddressList "Default Global Address List" -RecipientFilter {(Alias -ne $null -and RecipientType -ne 'MailUser' -and (ObjectClass -eq 'user' -or ObjectClass -eq 'Contact' -or ObjectClass -eq 'msExchSystemMailbox' -or ObjectClass -eq 'msExchDynamicDistributionList' -or ObjectClass -eq 'group' -or ObjectClass -eq 'publicFolder'))}
If you’re making this change to the default Global Address List see my previous post with the solution to the error that occurs when modifying the default Global Address List.
Note: Exchange 2013: MailUser is now MailContact
Hi Paul,
Can we do the settings like this below?
We don’t want regular employees see the “Title” in Global Address Book, but managers can see it. Is that possible? Our Exchange Server is 2007 SP1.
Thank you.
Jerry
Dear All,
How can I remove a wrong email address from the whole contacts address book as an admin?
Somebody entered that email by mistake and everybody is replying to that email.
Thanks for your help.
I don’t understand your scenario. What did they create? A mailbox? A contact?
hi,
I changed my zimbra mail server name. After successfully changed it, still I found old servername in gal.
How can I clear that.
My problem is similar in that we have addresses that aren’t showing up, namely any secondary smtp addresses or aliases…any thoughts on that?
I don’t understand the problem you’re describing.
Sorry! I was logged in with my account and I did not have any address books setup for my domain since I am the Administrator. Not thinking clearly. Once I attached outlook to one of the hosted domain with all the policies in place, they only saw there own GAL. Again sorry for the post. I am new to the muti tenant environment and getting better at it everyday that passes.
Paul,
In exchange 2016 I am hosting multiple domain and want to disable or delete the Default GAL. What is the best way to accomplish this?
What are you trying to achieve?
Hi Paul,
How do we hide two different companies’ GAL hosted on the same exchange server 2013 ?
so that company A dont see company B employees address list
Thanks
Anil
The Address Book Policies (ABP) feature of Exchange can do that for you.
Hi Paul,
I have Exchange Server 2013 and Zimbra Server (Hybrid), all the user stored in Active Directory.
I would like to send an email to the user who does not have exchange mailbox but has zimbra mailbox, when I do a search active directory user who has a mailbox zimbra not appear in the GAL.
How to display the active directory user who does not have Exchange mailboxes in the GAL?
Hi Paul,
here is the situation:
1. we have external clients and they cannot view the default GAL
2. external clients should see only other external clients and the staff from the department they work for and their distribution lists
3. i filtered external clients by custom attribute 1 and assign ABP
4. filtered department staff by custom attribute 2 and add them to external users GAL
5. external clients GAL looks good
the issue is:
external clients custom address list are visible in default GAL. i do not want to create a separate ABP and apply to everyone in the company except external clients – i actually want to have minimal changes to default GAL.
Please let me know if there is other way to configure it and how to remove custome address list from default GAL.
I run a script to disable a user from GAL and also I did manually from Exchange management list and hide through AD waited 2 days people still see the disabled user in outlook . Can you suggest me something ?
Environment
exchange 2007
outlook 2007
ad 2003 and 2012
Not sure what you mean by “Hide through AD”. Hiding a recipient from the GAL is done using Exchange management tools.
Otherwise, it depends if you mean users can still see them in Outlook or OWA. If it’s OWA, then the recipient hasn’t been hidden correctly. If its Outlook, it might just be the Offline Address Book.
https://www.practical365.com/optimizing-oab-schedules-exchange-server-2010/
Or if you mean in Outlook they can see the recipient’s name in their autocomplete cache, eg when they start typing it, that is the Outlook nickname cache and you’d need to clear that from clients to stop that.
Hi Paul
We want to do a similar filter but want to filter out Contacts with a string found in “Title” .
Set-GlobalAddressList “Default Global Address List” -RecipientFilter {(Alias -ne $null -and (ObjectClass -eq ‘user’ -or ObjectClass -eq ‘Contact’ -and (RecipientType -eq ‘UserMailbox’ -and (Title -notlike “string”)) -or ObjectClass -eq ‘msExchSystemMailbox’ -or ObjectClass -eq ‘msExchDynamicDistributionList’ -or ObjectClass -eq ‘group’ -or ObjectClass -eq ‘publicFolder’))}
These filters are not my strong side 🙂 Could you help me with my syntax.
Should the RecipientType be MailContact as you pointed out earlier ?
Hi Paul,
I’ve added CustomAttribute15 to filter by in order to hide from the GAL. My Filter looks like this: ((Alias -ne $null) -and (((((((((((((ObjectClass -eq ‘user’) -and (CustomAttribute15 -ne ‘hidden’))) -or (ObjectClass -eq ‘contact’))) -or (ObjectClass -eq ‘msExchSystemMailbox’))) -or (ObjectClass -eq ‘msExchDynamicDistributionList’))) -or (ObjectClass -eq ‘group’))) -or (ObjectClass -eq ‘publicFolder’))))
When I test it in OWA I can hide/show the contact by setting the attribute, but when I test the same from Outlook 2010 in on-line mode it seems to show it. Ideas?
Your Outlook 2010 client may be using its copy of the Offline Address Book which has not yet been updated with the changes you made to the GAL. OAB updates usually make it to clients within 48 hours.
You were absolutely correct. I ran update-globaladdresslist and the account in question disappeared. Thanks for such a quick reply. You rock!
Hi Paul,
When I ran the command you had listed below on a custom Global Access List that I am setting up it gives me the error. Set-GlobalAddressList: Property RecipientType used in the filter has unsupported operator NotEqual.
Is there something I am missing in the command. We are running Exchange Server 2007 SP1
Thanks,
Mike
Set-GlobalAddressList “Default Global Address List” -RecipientFilter {(Alias -ne $null -and RecipientType -ne ‘MailUser’ -and (ObjectClass -eq ‘user’ -or ObjectClass -eq ‘Contact’ -or ObjectClass -eq ‘msExchSystemMailbox’ -or ObjectClass -eq ‘msExchDynamicDistributionList’ -or ObjectClass -eq ‘group’ -or ObjectClass -eq ‘publicFolder’))}
What is the exact command you’re running?
Set-GlobalAddressList “Custom Global Address List” -RecipientFilter {(Alias -ne $null -and RecipientType -ne ‘MailUser’ -and (ObjectClass -eq ‘user’ -or ObjectClass -eq ‘Contact’ -or ObjectClass -eq ‘msExchSystemMailbox’ -or ObjectClass -eq ‘msExchDynamicDistributionList’ -or ObjectClass -eq ‘group’ -or ObjectClass -eq ‘publicFolder’))}
The only difference is the name for the Global Address List.
Hello Paul,
Great article, thank you. My company would like to remove external contacts from showing up in the GAL. I have removed the ObjectClass ‘contact’ from showing up in the recipient filter, yet our Outlook 2010 clients continue to show the contacts in the default GAL, even after a reboot and a couple days of waiting. Can you see anything wrong with the filter below? We have an Exchange 2007 and Exchange 2013 server. The filter looks the same on both. When looking at the Exchange 2013 server and displaying the preview of the GAL in the management console, no external contacts are listed. We don’t use cached exchange mode on any clients.
Thank you!
((Alias -ne $null) -and (((ObjectClass -eq ‘user’) -or (ObjectClass -eq ‘msExchSystemMailbox’) -or (ObjectClass -eq ‘msExchDynamicDistributionList’) -or (ObjectClass -eq ‘group’) -or (ObjectClass -eq ‘publicFolder’))))
Thanks for this, I have applied this to default GAL. I’m wondering how long it takes to take effect? Are there certain services that can be restarted to expedite? I still have “MailContacts” showing in the GAL.
IE If I run this shell cmd it will still show in the GAL
New-MailContact -Name “Joe Doe” -ExternalEmailAddress JohnDoe@Contoso.com -OrganizationalUnit “External Contacts”
I have 2 Mailbox Servers and 2 CAS all running Exch 2010 SP2. I have tried restarting a CAS server and then connecting clients to that CAS, still shows all Mail Contacts.
Perhaps you’ve made a syntax error in your recipient filter. I assume you’re looking at the GAL via OWA and not via Outlook to eliminate the OAB from the equation too.
We don’t have any OABs, I did check OWA and the same result occurs. Once reading your article again, I found that when I mail enable a AD account (which adds an external email address to an existing AD account) it does not show up in the GAL. When I use the shell CMD in my orginal post above to create a new mail enabled contact (no AD account, just a simple contact with an external email address) it does appear in the GAL.
Should your instructions omit mail enabled contacts from the GAL as well or is there different syntax needed to accomplish what i’m trying to do?
PS. I copied and pasted in your shell cmd. I also tried running it again leaving out the “-or ObjectClass -eq ‘Contact’”. And again
I don’t fully understand all of the shell CMD, specifically the -ne $null and multiple brackets. So I tried running this cmd as well:
Set-GlobalAddressList “Default Global Address List” -RecipientFilter {(Alias -ne $null -and RecipientType -ne ‘contact’ -and (ObjectClass -eq ‘user’ -or ObjectClass -eq ‘msExchSystemMailbox’ -or ObjectClass -eq ‘msExchDynamicDistributionList’ -or ObjectClass -eq ‘group’ -or ObjectClass -eq ‘publicFolder’))}
“Contact” isn’t a valid RecipientType. But “MailContact” is.
Those -ne and -eq bits are conditional operators. You can learn more about those here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh847759.aspx
That’s great Paul thanks.
I have some mailboxes for some select users that serve as UM or Voicemail only accounts. These same users also have a Quest Collaboration Services object that shows up in the GAL. I want the UM only maiil boxes to not show up it all, but if I use the Hide from GAL options, the lookup feature will not work for the UM only accounts. Is there any other way to hide these from the GAL so users quit emailing them?
We add – VM to the first name to try and distinguish them from the normal accounts. Are Display names are Lastname, Firstname.
If hide from GAL breaks your voicemail system then any other technique that removes them from the GAL will probably break it as well.
Hi Paul,
I need to hide a mail contact from the GAL. How this would be ?
I used this technique to hide about 2000 email-enabled security groups from the GAL so that users weren’t confused by the proliferation of groups that we use to control access to mailboxes, etc. This worked great and we were very excited. However, now, even though the owners of these groups can find their groups in other address lists that I’ve created, they cannot edit and save the membership changes – it says “Changes to the public group membership cannot be saved”. I assume this is because these groups are no longer in the scope of what these people are allowed to edit, but I cannot figure out how to fix this.
Can they edit them via an AD search instead of via Outlook? ie Start -> Search -> etc etc etc
Hi Paul,
If I run this ps1 cmdlet to remove ‘mailuser’ from the GAL, will this also remove it from the ‘All users’ list and a new custom Address List i’ve created for Mail Users??
Ideally, I want the mail users to appear only once in the Address Book – that should not be in the Default global address list and the All Users list, but in my newly created custom list.
thanks
It is Set-GlobalAddressList “Default Global Address List” so its only modifying the recipient scope of the “Default Global Address List” GAL object. The rest won’t be changed.
You can also bulk edit.
Just select all your contacts, choose properties, and check ‘hide from addresslist”
You could do that, but then you have to do that every time you create a new Mail User.
By modifying the query for the GAL you exclude all of them no matter when they are created.
Hi Paul,
Asking you a favor, am a java guy, came across a need to provision a user in exchange with calendar only feature. That is the user uses external mail (mailuser) but needs calendar. My search around cmdlets to enable such a user did not turn up much, taking a chance here. Thank you.
V
Venu, calendars are part of the mailbox. You’ll just need to create a mailbox.
Isn’t there a GUI to work with or only command line? Use to be so easy to “hide” someone from the GAL and now you have to go to a command line and type in all that gibberish and hope you don’t wipe out everyone.
Hi Mary, you can still hide a single Mailbox User from the GAL using the GUI. You just go into Exchange Management Console, open the properties for that Mailbox User, and you’ll find the checkbox in there.
This article is about hiding *all* objects of the type “Mail User” (different to Mailbox User) from the GAL. In the article I describe what a “Mail User” is.
Hey guys, another trick (even easier) would be to go to the Exchange Management Console and filter your users to the desired list. Next, select all the users and right click on the selection. Go to the Hide From Exchange Address Lists check box and select it until it’s blank. Once you do this it will prompt you to the amount of changes and then you just click OK and you’re good to go.
That seems easier, until you create more mail users. Then you have to remember to hide them each time as well.
By modifying the underlying query for the GAL, you filter them out for good, even if new ones are created later. More effective.
Hi Paul,
I have Exchange server 2010 and user have outlook 2007. everything was working fine all of sudden my user complaint me that they cant send email e.g David.L@saradxbz.com when they send email on this email id they got this error Delivery has failed to these recipients or groups:
David Lankester
The e-mail address you entered couldn’t be found. Please check the recipient’s e-mail address and try to resend the message. If the problem continues, please contact your helpdesk.
but when they send email from web outlook then there is no problem .
what i did i asked all user to delete this email from auto complete and type is manually once they did and for a day it work but now again they have same problem, whenever they send email to specific email id which mention above they got error msg.
Note: unfortunately that id is our GM 🙁
Please advice
How exactly did you “remove” this person from the Global Address List? Knowing that will determine where to go next.
I excluded the MailUser recipient type from the GAL query, ie the “RecipientType -ne ‘MailUser” bit you see above.
This removes all Mail User recipient types from the GAL in question.
I have done exactly what is described above using the command below. But the Mailuser still appear in the Default GAL. All i want to hide the mail user from the Default Global Address List but show the in another Address list. I am trying this on Exchange 2010 SP1.
Set-GlobalAddressList “Default Global Address List” -RecipientFilter {(Alias -ne $null -and RecipientType -ne ‘MailUser’ -and (ObjectClass -eq ‘user’ -or ObjectClass -eq ‘Contact’ -or ObjectClass -eq ‘msExchSystemMailbox’ -or ObjectClass -eq ‘msExchDynamicDistributionList’ -or ObjectClass -eq ‘group’ -or ObjectClass -eq ‘publicFolder’))}
There is another post that suggested modifying GAL purportedSearch attribute. I have not yet tried this. I am not sure if this is safe?
Have anyone manage to archive what i am trying to do? Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks