Convert unified group to DL

Glenn Maxwell 10,146 Reputation points
2021-04-07T17:40:00.907+00:00

Hi All

I have an office 365 unified group, can i covert it to office 365 distribution list. will the users loose membership?

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  1. JoyZ 18,041 Reputation points
    2021-04-08T06:24:49.963+00:00

    Hi @Glenn Maxwell ,

    Agree with michev.

    Script to "convert" Unified Groups to Distribution Lists.

    The script first gets a list of Unified Groups and saves it in a constant. 

    $Groups = Get-UnifiedGroup -ResultSize Unlimited

    It then gets the PirmarySmtpAddress for each group. 

    $Groups | ForEach-Object {  
$group = $_  
$GroupEmail = Get-UnifiedGroup -Identity $group.Name | select PrimarySmtpAddress

    Next, we get the Members from each group and save them. 

    Get-UnifiedGroupLinks -Identity $group.Name -LinkType Members | ForEach-Object {  
New-Object -TypeName PSObject -Property @{  
Group = $group.DisplayName  
GroupEmail = $GroupEmail.primarysmtpaddress  
Member = $_.Name  
EmailAddress = $_.PrimarySMTPAddress  
RecipientType= $_.RecipientType

    We then export the members, import the members that are sorted by unique group email. 

    Export-CSV “C:UnifiedGroupMembers.csv” -NoTypeInformation -Encoding UTF8  
$distro = Import-Csv C:UnifiedGroupMembers.csv | sort GroupEmail –Unique

    Now we delete the Unified Group and insert a pause of 30 seconds 

    $distro | foreach{Remove-UnifiedGroup -Identity $_.GroupEmail -force}  
Start-Sleep -s 30

    Lastly we create Distribution list with the members that we got from the Unified Groups. 

    $distro | foreach{New-DistributionGroup -Name $_.Group -primarysmtpaddress $_.GroupEmail}  
Import-CSV “C:UnifiedGroupMembers.csv” | foreach {Add-DistributionGroupMember -identity $_.GroupEmail -member $_.EmailAddress}

    As a supplement, when a Unified Group is created there is a Calendar, OneNote, SharePoint Online site and a OneDrive for business Storage added to it.

    If your users start using this feature, then the data within those locations will be deleted.

    More information for your reference:

    https://github.com/oliveir3/Convert-Office-365-Groups

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  1. Vasil Michev 95,181 Reputation points MVP
    2021-04-07T17:57:30.82+00:00

    There's no "conversion" process from O365 Group to DL, only in the other way. For your scenario, you will need to manually create a DL and populate it with the membership of the O365 Group.

    2 people found this answer helpful.
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  2. xoxidein 31 Reputation points
    2022-08-22T14:54:18+00:00

    I'm getting "Missing '=' operator after key in hash literal" on the Export-Csv line

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