Mail-enable or mail-disable a public folder
Public folders are designed for shared access and provide an easy and effective way to collect, organize, and share information with other people in your workgroup or organization. Mail-enabling a public folder allows users to post to the public folder by sending an email message to it. When a public folder is mail-enabled additional settings become available for the public folder in the Exchange admin center (EAC), such as email addresses and mail quotas. In the Exchange Management Shell, before a public folder is mail-enabled, you use the Set-PublicFolder cmdlet to manage all of its settings. After the public folder is mail-enabled, you use the Set-PublicFolder and the Set-MailPublicFolder cmdlets to manage the settings.
If you want users on the Internet to send mail to a mail-enabled public folder, you need to set addition permissions using the Add-PublicFolderClientPermission cmdlet.
For additional management tasks related to managing public folders, see Public folder procedures.
What do you need to know before you begin?
Estimated time to complete: 5 minutes
To ensure that users on the Internet can send e-mail messages to a mail-enabled public folder, the public folder needs to have at least the CreateItems access right granted to the Anonymous account. If you want to learn how to do this, see Allow anonymous users to send email to a mail-enabled public folder later in this article.
You need to be assigned permissions before you can perform this procedure or procedures. To see what permissions you need, see the "Public folders" entry in the Sharing and collaboration permissions topic.
For information about keyboard shortcuts that may apply to the procedures in this topic, see Keyboard shortcuts in the Exchange admin center.
Tip
Having problems? Ask for help in the Exchange forums. Visit the forums at: Exchange Server, Exchange Online, or Exchange Online Protection.
Use the EAC to mail-enable or mail-disable a public folder
Navigate to Public folders > Public folders.
In the list view, select the public folder that you want to mail-enable or mail-disable.
In the details pane, under Mail settings, click Enable or Disable.
A warning box displays asking if you're sure you want to enable or disable email for the public folder. Click Yes to continue.
If you want external users to send mail to this public folder, make sure you follow the steps in Allow anonymous users to send email to a mail-enabled public folder.
Use the Exchange Management Shell to mail-enable a public folder
This example mail-enables the public folder Help Desk.
Enable-MailPublicFolder -Identity "\Help Desk"
This example mail-enables the public folder Reports under the Marketing public folder, but hides the folder from address lists.
Enable-MailPublicFolder -Identity "\Marketing\Reports" -HiddenFromAddressListsEnabled $True
If you want external users to send mail to this public folder, make sure you follow the steps in Allow anonymous users to send email to a mail-enabled public folder.
For detailed syntax and parameter information, see Enable-MailPublicFolder.
Use the Exchange Management Shell to mail-disable a public folder
This example mail-disables the public folder Marketing\Reports.
Disable-MailPublicFolder -Identity "\Marketing\Reports"
For detailed syntax and parameter information, see Disable-MailPublicFolder.
Allow anonymous users to send email to a mail-enabled public folder
You can use either Outlook or the Exchange Management Shell to set permissions on a public folder's Anonymous account. You can't use the EAC to set permissions on the Anonymous account.
Use Outlook to set permissions for the Anonymous account
Open Outlook using an account that's been granted Owner permissions on the email-enabled public folder you want anonymous users to send mail to.
Navigate to Public folders - <user's name>.
Navigate to the public folder you want to change.
Right-click on the public folder, click Properties and then select the Permissions tab.
Select the Anonymous account, select Create items under Write, and then click OK.
Use the Exchange Management Shell to set permissions for the Anonymous account
This example sets the CreateItems permission for the Anonymous account on the "Customer Feedback" mail-enabled public folder.
Add-PublicFolderClientPermission "\Customer Feedback" -AccessRights CreateItems -User Anonymous
For detailed syntax and parameter information, see Add-PublicFolderClientPermission.