Office 365 Outlook email issue

Nita McKinney 76

Please forward steps to remedy the following message I'm getting while using Office 365 / Outlook. Nothing has changed - no settings have changed:

Delivery has failed to these recipients or groups: ****@*******.com Your message wasn't delivered because the recipient's email provider rejected it. Diagnostic information for administrators: Generating server: SN6PR0102MB3373.prod.exchangelabs.com ****@******.com Remote Server returned '550 5.7.520 Access denied, Your organization does not allow external forwarding. Please contact your administrator for further assistance. AS(7555)'

Rey Ramos 6 Reputation points

2020-10-16T12:18:19.197+00:00

Same issue in Spain from Wednesday, With this solution now is running well.

Thanks for Solution.
John Oman 6 Reputation points

2020-10-16T20:45:16.827+00:00

I've turned Outbound Spam Policy, Automatic Forwarding to "ON".
Still getting the the same rejection...
Does it take some hours for the setting to propagate to the Server?
Nita McKinney 76 Reputation points

2020-10-16T20:51:32.697+00:00

Same with me. I changed my setting yesterday morning and I'm still getting the same message.
Lei Badilla 6 Reputation points

2020-10-17T00:31:19.493+00:00

Same here. I changed my auto-forwarding settings to ON but I am still having the same error.
David 6 Reputation points

2020-10-18T08:42:09.877+00:00

Still having the same issue, can't save the "on" state for allowing forwarding to an external address.
Lorrae Jaderberg 6 Reputation points

2020-10-18T09:34:10.64+00:00

Having the same problem as David-1937
John Oman 6 Reputation points

2020-10-18T13:58:27.64+00:00

It took a few hours (to propagate to the server?) but mine is now working. Thanks.
Jade Liang-MSFT 9,986 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2020-10-19T05:23:20.397+00:00

Hi @Nita McKinney ,
Could your account work normally now?
As John mentioned, it may take a few hours to work and his could be working now. Hope it works for you too.
Any update, please feel free to post back.
Paul Caspers 1 Reputation point

2020-11-12T07:11:30.633+00:00

I have a simialr problem since 1-2 days. I get an EMail from external sender and short after it a message that it couldn't be deliverd to xxx@Stuff .com. Something in addtion tried to send it to xxx@Stuff .com (it is NOT my gmail account). What is this? The message I get is

Generating server: AM0PR07MB4962.eurprd07.prod.outlook.com
xxx@Stuff .com
Remote Server returned '550 5.7.520 Access denied, Your organization does not allow external forwarding. Please contact your administrator for further assistance. AS(7555)'

I didnt sent anything to xxx.gmail.com and I also do not have a forward eMail in any of our O365/Outlook accounts.

Thanks for advice / Paul
Paul Caspers 1 Reputation point

2020-11-12T07:11:54.93+00:00

I have a simialr problem since 1-2 days. I get an EMail from external sender and short after it a message that it couldn't be deliverd to xxx@Stuff .com. Something in addtion tried to send it to xxx@Stuff .com (it is NOT my gmail account). What is this? The message I get is

Generating server: AM0PR07MB4962.eurprd07.prod.outlook.com
xxx@Stuff .com
Remote Server returned '550 5.7.520 Access denied, Your organization does not allow external forwarding. Please contact your administrator for further assistance. AS(7555)'

I didnt sent anything to xxx.gmail.com and I also do not have a forward eMail in any of our O365/Outlook accounts.

Thanks for advice / Paul
LH_loveinc 6 Reputation points

2020-11-16T16:44:21.447+00:00

Same problem here, but there's not any forwarding involved. Impacted messages are from Outlook addresses to Outlook addresses. When group emails are sent within my organization (I'm the admin) only one person's email returns this error: '550 5.7.520 Access denied, Your organization does not allow external forwarding. Please contact your administrator for further assistance. AS(7555)'. No settings have changed. All other email addresses within the organization seem to work fine, with messages being delivered.

Suggestions?
Andy David - MVP 156K Reputation points MVP Moderator

2020-11-16T16:47:37.687+00:00

Please start a new thread for any issues.
DAVID J WILLARD 1 Reputation point

2020-11-16T17:21:42.127+00:00

LHlovenic, You need to try the steps Andy David outlined in his comments, despite that you feel message exchanges are within your company Outlook domain. This is a typical MS (microsoft or, more accurately, Multiple Sclerosis) issue, cause and effect.

Microsoft's reply to us was that they sent out bulletins. With the volume of bulletins MS releases to us we simply don't have the time to sift through each and every one of their plethora of bulletins for data pertinent to business or our clients and the titles, subject lines don't always remotely define the content of those bulletins related to our needs and requirements,
Elliott Ho 11 Reputation points

2020-11-17T06:52:36.457+00:00

Hi,

I've couple O365 sites, 1 of them cannot shown "Outbound mail policy" in AntiSpam setting.
Anyone know how to get it back?

Many thanks
Elliott
David North 1 Reputation point

2020-11-18T10:40:23.95+00:00

When editing the default policy, I found that I had to give it a name before I could save it!
Mike Smith 6 Reputation points

2020-11-23T20:14:25.917+00:00

Thank you for this post. We just noticed the same issue today. The screenshots provided by @Dennis Depoorter fixed the issue for us. I registered for this community just to say that. Thanks again!
Gerard Oneill 21 Reputation points

2020-11-25T13:26:15.6+00:00

This is most probably due to a new policy (not the default one) requiring an "Applies To" sender to be specified. If you are just enabling company emails, then specify your domain as the sender domain. If you require forwarding external emails, then you have to change the default policy which does not have this requirement.
Weird Dog 11 Reputation points

2021-03-10T02:02:31.83+00:00

I'm having the same issue. I followed the instructions to update the outbound rule to allow forwarding and then I see a dialog box pop up that says:
Sorry! We couldn't update your organization settings for now, but we will retry it in background. Please check back later.

This is extremely frustrating, and I haven't been receiving emails to my gmail account for months.
zyl zyl 1 Reputation point

2021-04-26T15:41:41.15+00:00

well, PRC has Microsoft OS [core-codes] for monitoring. that may be why this problem comes to outlook/hotmail services.
zyl zyl 1 Reputation point

2021-04-26T15:44:40.047+00:00

I have got the same problem today, for the same individuals and groups of which there was no problem before. This reminds me that the PRC has Microsoft OS [core-codes] for monitoring.
Jakub Růžička 1 Reputation point

2021-08-31T07:51:04.27+00:00

Hello,
I found way how to fix this problem without need of power shell commands.

1) In exchange admin center create new contact that you want to forward to.
2) In mailboxes - select user you want to be forwarded and go to Manage mail flow settings
3) Edit email forwarding and enter your created contact
4) wait few minutes and you can forward

If you don't create contact it wont let you select email address.
To modify global forwarding policy you need powershell command to allow you make modifications to any global rules.

I hope that you find this useful as I seen a lot of ppl to struggle with it.
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13 answers

Andy David - MVP 156K Reputation points MVP Moderator

2020-10-14T14:15:52.26+00:00

You need to contact your Mail admins as the message states.
Office365 now blocks all auto-forwarding by default or they have set their own custom blocking

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/security/office-365-security/external-email-forwarding?view=o365-worldwide
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8 people found this answer helpful.
Jade Liang-MSFT 9,986 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2020-10-15T06:51:02.22+00:00

Hi @Nita McKinney ,
Agree with Andy, has your issue been resolved? If so, please mark the helpful reply to answer.
Any update, please feel free to post back.

Arie 6 Reputation points

2020-10-15T13:54:27.89+00:00

I have the same issue since about yesterday. Did this change went live just now? Certain messages are allowed through and others are not.

I have admin access and just changed the forward policy from automatic by system, to always on. Should this be the fix for this?

Andy David - MVP 156K Reputation points MVP Moderator

2020-10-15T13:56:57.7+00:00

If you want to allow auto forwarding, yes

Arie 6 Reputation points

2020-10-15T15:52:57.173+00:00

It seems to be fixed indeed.

Apparently this was announced in the message center I didn't know of. I now have configured it to send messages like these through email.

Thank you, Arie

Lang 1 Reputation point

2020-10-16T07:45:16.427+00:00

HI Andy,

curious about this, as I'm having exactly the same issue, however i did set the Spam Policy to "ON", but still getting the same error message.

any thoughts?

Cheers!

Jakub 83 6 Reputation points

2020-10-16T08:39:04.097+00:00

Hi.

I have exacly same situation.
(I am forwarding all message from office 365 to gmail.)
Arie couold you please tell me how to
just changed the forward policy from automatic by system, to always on

Where can I find it in admins panel?

ThomasW 6 Reputation points

2020-10-16T09:21:41.483+00:00

Getting:
'550 5.7.520 Access denied, Your organization does not allow external forwarding. Please contact your administrator for further assistance. AS(7555)'
for every mail I recieve.😕

Haven´t made any changes for months when I suddenly started to get Error-spam from Office 365 for every mail I receive.

I am the administrator and working in a family business (Not an IT-Expert) so need more detailed guidance how to get rid of the Error-spamming from outlook.

Since it´s Swedish layout of Office 365 I would like to get "Swedish directions" if possible....

Many thanks!
Best regards
Thomas

Dennis Depoorter 211 Reputation points

2020-10-16T09:49:29.867+00:00

As an admin go to: https://protection.office.com/antispam
Open Outbound Spam fitler policy and click Edit policy

Set "Automatic forwardin" "ON"

Jakub 83 6 Reputation points

2020-10-16T12:25:21.213+00:00

DennisDepoorter-9036

GOOD Answer. I just got exacly same tip from Microsoft help and it solved that problem

David 6 Reputation points

2020-10-16T14:47:39.323+00:00

I'm doing this but it doesn't seem to Save, the popup window doesn't close and it reverts. I'm the admin and given myself all the admin roles in exchange and the security and compliance permissions area, at a loss now it was working fine yesterday.

ThomasW 6 Reputation points

2020-10-16T15:43:50.203+00:00

Thank you, saved my weekend!!!

Solution running smoothly.

Gold medal for you!
🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇

ThomasW 6 Reputation points

2020-10-16T16:08:05.747+00:00

It happend to me as well but I reloaded website after a while and it changed status to "On - Forwarding is enabled"...
Guess the server took an early weekend.

David 6 Reputation points

2020-10-19T09:39:20.14+00:00

It's so frustrating, it's still not saving under my own admin account or the initial account that setup the tenant.

ThomasW 6 Reputation points

2020-10-19T09:49:06.593+00:00

Is this activated?

Let people outside the organization email the group
This option is great if you want to have a company email address such as info@Company portal .com.
In the admin center, expand Groups, and then click Groups.
Click the name of the group you want to manage to open the settings pane.
In the admin center groups list, select the name of the group you want to change, and then on the Settings tab, select Allow external senders to email this group.
Select Save.

Found at:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/admin/create-groups/manage-groups?view=o365-worldwide

David 6 Reputation points

2020-10-19T10:04:14.297+00:00

Hi Thomas,

Yes externals are being able to email the address, but we had forwarding on to send the email to a piece of software (HelpScout) so a team can reply to the tickets each email generated. That's currently failing, the email is landing in the mailbox and then MS is generating a messaging saying it can't be forwarded on. Trying to save the Automatic forwarding as on just doesn't seem to persist, the save button grey's out then comes back to click again but it's not actually saving, regardless of the admin user trying to apply the change.

Jakub 83 6 Reputation points

2020-10-19T11:03:29.14+00:00

David --> try to save it all the time,
When someone helped me from Microsoft (remote conetion) he tryed maybe 10 timmes. He switched from normal to incodnito mode (chrome) log in and log out. Refresch page all the time
And finnaly it saved.

David 6 Reputation points

2020-10-19T11:05:50.077+00:00

Thanks, I've tried logging in/out with different accounts and incognito mode but I've noticed it always generates the attached error regardless.

Chip 1 Reputation point

2020-10-19T13:37:31.127+00:00

@Dennis Depoorter This resolved my issue. Thanks for taking time to share detailed information!

Chalton Monteiro 6 Reputation points

2020-10-19T14:27:50+00:00

Is there a way to setup only individual accounts and not to entire organization ?

The Dude Abides 6 Reputation points

2020-10-31T15:03:58.657+00:00

Just did this. Basically go into the default Outbound Spam and set the Automatic Forwarding to On-Forwarding is Enabled. Once this is complete, I created a Group (MS 365 Group) and added users I'd like to this group to be able to forward. At this point, follow this article and at the end on exceptions, add your group. Works like a charm. https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/2245945-enable-automatic-forwarding-for-specific-users

p.s. when you go to add the group, you may have to use check names at the bottom for the email address associated with the group.

Solomon Cowan 1 Reputation point

2020-11-02T19:06:33.723+00:00

This worked for me, thank you.

Donovan Bogor 1 Reputation point

2020-11-11T12:13:03.78+00:00

Thank you for this. It solved the issue in my organization.

Anonymous

2020-11-12T08:48:50.177+00:00

Thank you so much! I could not have find it myself.

Rich Cabico 1 Reputation point

2020-11-12T23:47:34.94+00:00

Worked for me as well. Thanks!

DAVID J WILLARD 1 Reputation point

2020-11-14T11:37:54.037+00:00

Good grief! Andy David, thanks for that time-saving referral.

Good 'ole Billy-Bob Gates' legacy still up to its age-old stunts. Hunted all over our Micros!@t account, every section, what I thought was every link and couldn't find this. Spam/security filters up until recently were extremely transparent, easy to navigate to. This looks like some "writer" or "writers" were out to impress folks with their ability to unnecessarily complicate things. And then MS's reply was, "We sent out advisories." Who, for those running a business, has time to read through that volume of MS propaganda with every thing else to read, review, etc. (punctuation intentional!)

For those still experiencing issues with their desktop Outlook clients, you may need to go into your "Rules and Alerts" link (html "button") and set up your rules allowing forwarding.

Again, thanks A David

Kristijan Perčič 1 Reputation point

2020-11-15T11:38:15.503+00:00

Thank you. You saved my afternoon.

MY VISA ONLINE - Migration 1 Reputation point

2020-11-19T08:30:45.54+00:00

Thank you Dennis Depoorter worked for me, as per instructions Regards Shiva

Wayne Powell, Administrative Manager WDCC 1 Reputation point

2020-11-19T15:14:29.86+00:00

Except I JUST got off the phone with Office 365 Support and they said they DO NOT block auto-forwarding. So this must be a recent change and I don't recall seeing the policy distributed as a warning by email. Sigh.

n8 1 Reputation point

2020-11-23T20:08:35.917+00:00

Is there any way to have this forwarding to external domains be allowed to only specific domains?

Gerard Oneill 21 Reputation points

2020-11-25T13:20:05.223+00:00

This answer is it, but there is a nuance. The anti-spam OUTBOUND SPAM policy has a default policy which is always on, and you can create your own. When you create your own, you need to specify a "sender" or "Sender Domain" or "Sender Group". It doesn't allow wild cards, and doesn't seem to pick up on things like 'external', or 'outside the organization'. If you specify your domain, it will work for your organization's emails, but not for external emails that need to get forwarded to an external email.

But the default rule doesn't have this "applies to" rule, and thus works on external addresses.

HTH

Anthony T 1 Reputation point

2020-12-15T06:54:37.897+00:00

OK so, I was having the same issue with ONE user (probably compromised) that had a rule setup to forward all emails received in "Inbox" to xxx@Stuff .com (looks like a dump inbox to collect business based emails) and stop running rules on this message once processed.

The root cause of the mail forwarding spam messages is NOT the rule. The rule is set to protect you from employees or potential threats from sending emails externally and without admin approval.

I would say to all those saying to "Turn the rule off" find the root cause of the messages. They don't just happen if you haven't setup forwarding -- especially not to an email that clearly does not belong to you...

Be careful about just arbitrarily manipulating security rules...
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Jade Liang-MSFT 9,986 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2020-10-23T02:11:10.813+00:00

Hi all,

Considering there are many users that are facing with this issue, in order to make it easier for other users to search in the forum, here is the summary about the discussions mentioned above:

"5.7.520 Access Denied – Your administrator has disabled external forwarding – AS(XXXX)", this error would happen When a message is detected as automatically forwarded and the organizational policy blocks that activity. For more information, please refer to this article: Control automatic external email forwarding in Microsoft 365.

As a workaround, it's suggested to contact your administrator to enable this feature via Security & Compliance Center or PowerShell.
Method 1: In the Security & Compliance Center：

Method 2: PowerShell:
Set-HostedOutboundSpamFilterPolicy -Identity "<PolicyName>" -AutoForwardingMode Automatic/On/Off

Besides, considering the working time may be affected by the internet of your server and client, it may take a few hours to work as JohnOman-3035 mentioned, please kindly wait it for a while.

For the issue about "can't save the "on" state for allowing forwarding to an external address." as David mentioned, it may be related to the server itself, due to here we mainly focus on general issues about Outlook, it's suggested to open a service request to get more help.

If the response is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and upvote it.
Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.
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5 people found this answer helpful.
Xavier BROCHET 16 Reputation points

2020-11-02T10:15:15.49+00:00

Hi y'all :)

The JadeLiang-MSFT's proposition works very well, thank you.

Regards

Xavier

DAVID J WILLARD 1 Reputation point

2020-11-14T11:41:03.433+00:00

As Andy David clearly but briefly explained on October 14, 2020!

Gerard Oneill 21 Reputation points

2020-11-25T13:32:08.353+00:00

Your explicit instructions are good, but some mention about creating your own policy vs changing the default policy is required. Ideally microsoft would not make 'applies to' a requirement, or would allow a check box for external emails. But without that, emphasizing that external email forwarding to an external address can only be done by changing the default rule. For some people, changing /adding their own rule is OK if they just want the ability to forward mail from the organization.

Annemieke Gerritsen Nouwens 1 Reputation point

2020-12-08T10:10:48.26+00:00

you are a star! it took me quiet some time to find this answer, but finally the problem solved after reading this advice!! so happy with this

Kulwant 5 Reputation points

2023-02-21T23:55:17.41+00:00

I'm unable to set this policy as I get a message that says I need to run the command "Enable-OrganizationCustomization".

Where do I find/open the PowerShell to run this command? It's not clear which Admin Centre I should use either. Is it Exchange or some other?
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Elliott Ho 11 Reputation points

2020-11-19T02:21:09.827+00:00

Finally contacted MS support via local distributor and solved issue
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1 person found this answer helpful.
Conor Letham 1 Reputation point Microsoft Employee

2020-12-15T11:47:59.603+00:00

Please could you reply with the fix that was applied?
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David Pilcher 6 Reputation points

2021-07-27T23:31:47.423+00:00
I used this to work around it:

Installed Powershell 7.1 so I could use latest Exchange EXO V2 module.

Open Powershell 7 prompt (not regular)

Install-Module -Name ExchangeOnlineManagement -Scope CurrentUser

Connected using: Connect-ExchangeOnline -UserPrincipalName <adminemail>

Used "Set-HostedOutboundSpamFilterPolicy -identity "Default" -AutoForwardingMode On"
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1 person found this answer helpful.

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Korobkin, Scott 1 Reputation point

2020-11-10T19:21:14.903+00:00

You need to create a new outbound policy to fix the issue. It took affect right away. Thank you for the post.
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Gerard Oneill 21 Reputation points

2020-11-25T13:35:06.183+00:00

This only works for organizational emails (or emails where you know the domain, I suppose). But for generic external emails being forwarded to an external email, you have to modify the default rule, which doesn't have the 'applies to' filter and thus applies to all senders including random external ones.

Leo Sushansky 6 Reputation points

2021-02-18T23:07:42.757+00:00

I cannot get it to save no matter what. I always get

Security & Compliance

Sorry! We couldn't update your organization settings for now, but we will retry it in background. Please check back later.

Doesn't matter if I use the default or create a new Outbound spam filter policy.

Shane Sorgsepp 1 Reputation point

2021-02-24T08:59:53.753+00:00

Yes, this is very major bug from Microsoft. They need to fix this as when people email to the person in the org that has email forwarding turn on (but not working) they get NO bounce message! The message just vanishes. The spam policy area does not work either as you cannot save the changes "Sorry! We couldn't update your organization settings for now, but we will retry it in background. Please check back later."

An absolute joke!

Jack Wilson 0 Reputation points

2023-06-24T12:05:01.7566667+00:00

Anyone having problem in 2023 still?

Marcl 0 Reputation points

2023-08-05T22:12:44.46+00:00

yes, we do. it all started some weeks ago and we still can't find a fix.
One Client wants his emails forwarded.
Once I send him a mail the email arrives in his mailbox and message tracking shows me 5.7.520 Access denied, Your organization does not allow external forwarding. as the mail could not be forwarded to the final destination account. I also get no error message in my mail.
The policy for forwarding emails always worked in the past, seems like something has been changed.
Anyone else with the same problems?
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Office 365 Outlook email issue

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