Convert user mailbox to shared mailbox with PowerShell

You want to convert the user mailbox to shared mailbox in Exchange Server. It’s possible to convert the user mailbox to shared mailbox in a couple of ways. One of them is in the Exchange Admin Center. The other way is to convert the user mailbox to shared mailbox with PowerShell. In Exchange 2010, it’s only possible to do it with PowerShell. In Exchange 2013/2016/2019, you can do it through both ways.

Update: Good to know is that Microsoft removed the option to convert the user mailbox to shared mailbox in Exchange admin center on-premises. Don’t panic as PowerShell will get the job done.

Why do you want to convert the user mailbox?

Why you want to convert a user mailbox to shared mailbox:

• You created a user mailbox, but it should be a shared mailbox.
• You don’t want to license the user mailbox. A shared mailbox has no license/cost attached.

Do you like to have an export of all the user mailboxes and shared mailboxes? Read the article Get mailbox size of all users in Exchange with PowerShell.

Convert user mailbox to shared mailbox

Note: If your organization uses an Exchange hybrid environment, you need to manage your mailboxes using the on-premises Exchange management tools. Follow the article Convert user mailbox to shared mailbox in Exchange Hybrid.

Run Exchange Management Shell as administrator. Run the Set-Mailbox cmdlet and specify the user mailbox. You can fill in the display name or email address of the mailbox. You will not get an output showing that it’s succeeded after running the cmdlet.

[PS] C:\>Set-Mailbox "Boris Campbell" -Type Shared

[PS] C:\>Set-Mailbox "boris.campbell@exoip.com" -Type Shared

Verify converted mailbox type

How do you know if converting the user mailbox to shared mailbox worked? Run the Get-Mailbox cmdlet, and it will show the output. It will show as SharedMailbox, as seen below.

[PS] C:\>Get-Mailbox -Identity "Boris Campbell" | Format-Table Name, RecipientTypeDetails

Name           RecipientTypeDetails
----           --------------------
Boris Campbell        SharedMailbox


[PS] C:\>Get-Mailbox -Identity "Boris.Campbell@exoip.com" | Format-Table Name, RecipientTypeDetails

Name           RecipientTypeDetails
----           --------------------
Boris Campbell        SharedMailbox

Now that we verified the mailbox and all is looking good, we can mark this as solved! Did this help you to convert the user mailbox to shared mailbox in Exchange Server with PowerShell?

What if you have more then a couple of user mailboxes to convert to shared mailboxes? Read the article Bulk convert user mailbox to shared mailbox with PowerShell.

Conclusion

In this article, you learned how to convert user mailbox to shared mailbox with PowerShell. Start Exchange Management Shell and run the cmdlet, as seen in the article. After that, verify the Recipient Type details. It will show as Shared Mailbox.

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