Getting Rid of Auto-Mapped Mailboxes

As a Microsoft Exchange administrator, you may often find a need to access various mailboxes within your organization. The easiest way to do that is to grant yourself Full Access permission to the mailbox, and then add the mailbox to your Outlook profile by following these steps:

1. Choose File→Account Settings.

2. Click the E-mail tab.

3. Click More Settings.

4. Click the Advanced tab.

5. Click Add.

6. Type the name of the mailbox you want to add to your profile.

7. Click OK.

8. Click OK again, click Next, and click Finish.

When you've added a mailbox in this manner, the additional mailbox appears within Microsoft Outlook so that you can access the email, contacts, calendar, and other resources of the mailbox.

When you no longer need access to the mailbox, you can repeat the same procedure through Step 4. Then, instead of clicking Add, select the mailbox you want to remove and click the Remove button.

Trouble is, in many cases you'll discover that the mailbox doesn't go away. Closing and re-opening Outlook won't make the mailbox go away. Rebooting your computer won't make the mailbox go away. Even creating an entirely new Outlook profile won't make the mailbox go away.

Why? Because of a feature of Exchange called Automapping. When a mailbox has become automapped, there's nothing you can do as an end-user to remove the mailbox from Outlook. Instead, you have to remove the Automapping feature from the mailbox.

To do that, you must run a special PowerShell on the Exchange server. Remote into the Exchange Server via Remote Desktop Connection, click the Start button, and then open the Exchange Management Shell. Then enter the following PowerShell command:

Add-MailboxPermission –Identity <em>shared-mailbox</em> –User
   <em>your-mailbox </em>–AccessRights FullAccess –InheritanceType
   All –Automapping $false

Replace shared-mailbox with the name of the mailbox you want to remove and your-mailbox with the name of your mailbox. For example, if your mailbox is named Bond and the mailbox you want to remove from your Outlook profile is named Moneypenny, enter this command:

Add-MailboxPermission –Identity Moneypenny –User Bond
   –AccessRights FullAccess –InheritanceType
   All –Automapping $false

That's all there is to it; this command will remove the Automapping feature so the mailbox will stop appearing in your Outlook profile.