federated user mailbox type

Question

I have a user has a mailbox in exchange online mailbox. The users mailbox should be on-premise. I removed exchange license, but the user mailbox didn't get deleted. After mess around, the mailbox type is now shown as Federated user.

How can I remove this mailbox? I don't want to deleted the user. It is synced from AD.

Regards,

Lydia

Answer 1

Hi Lydia,

It is expected that the error occurred when you tried to delete the mailbox in Exchange Online PowerShell. The user is synced from on-premises AD to the cloud. The source anchor is on-premises. Therefore, you are not able to manage or delete it from the cloud. You can filter the user out from the cloud and hard delete it.

Thanks,

Alex

Answer 2

My customer doesn't have Exchange On-Prem any more but we are unable to get this archive turned on.

Is there a special procedure other than  (backup data) deleting the user and recreating user upload the data?

is there like a switch off for the hybrid configuration to go away from the user? like Attribute Filtering? so the cloud allows this user to enable archive?

Answer 3

Hi Lydia,

If you have Exchange Hybrid deployed, you can enable a remote mailbox from on-premises Exchange for the Office 365 mailbox, and then migrate the cloud mailbox to the on-premises. The accounts and data will move moved smoothly.

Best Regards,

Alex

Answer 4

Hi Alex,

Thanks for the reply.

I tried these below and you can see the error. My understanding is that remove-mailbox only work with soft-deleted mailbox and mailbox to be deleted by removing exchange license.

I don't want to remove user until the very last to recreate it. Don't worry about federated user type, it has come back normal now.

PS C:\windows\system32> Remove-Mailbox -Identity "Renee Daji"

The following error occurred during validation in agent 'Windows LiveId Agent': 'Unable to perform the save operation.

'Renee Daji' is not within a valid server write scope.'

    + CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (:) [Remove-Mailbox], ProvisioningValidationException

    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : [Server=MEXPR01MB1382,RequestId=0f10744d-519e-413a-b383-383a9f8afeff,TimeStamp=1/11/2016

    2:01:30 a.m.] [FailureCategory=Cmdlet-ProvisioningValidationException] F1A443CE,Microsoft.Exchange.Management.Rec

  ipientTasks.RemoveMailbox

PS C:\windows\system32> Get-Mailbox -Identity "Renee Daji"

Name                      Alias                ServerName       ProhibitSendQuota

----                      -----                ----------       -----------------

Renee Daji                reneed               sy3pr01mb0507    49.5 GB (53,150,220,288 bytes)

PS C:\windows\system32> Disable-Mailbox -Identity "Renee Daji"

The following error occurred during validation in agent 'Archive ParameterSet Enforcement Agent': 'This operation only

works with Archive or PermanentlyDisable parameters.'

    + CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (:) [Disable-Mailbox], ProvisioningValidationException

    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : [Server=MEXPR01MB1382,RequestId=269d4b7e-8288-404e-b65e-66322b80c3bf,TimeStamp=1/11/2016

    2:06:31 a.m.] [FailureCategory=Cmdlet-ProvisioningValidationException] 9D1C9CC1,Microsoft.Exchange.Management.Rec

  ipientTasks.DisableMailbox

Regards,

Lydia

Answer 5

Hi Lydia,

After you remove the licenses from the user account, the mailbox may not be deleted immediately, or still kept in the cloud. In Exchange Online, we can use the PowerShell command Remove-Mailbox to soft-delete or hard deleteit.

Considering you have directory synchroniztion and Exchange Hybrid deployed, it is suggested that you filter the user by OU filter or Attribute filer. The user account and mailbox will be deleted, to the Recycle Bin. You can also permanently remove it from there. Please make sure to back up the data before the deletion. Then you can create an on-premises Exchange mailbox, disable the filter to sync the user again, and then migrate the mailbox if necessary.

I'm not unclear how the mailbox type is changed to federated. Could you provide a screenshot about "the mailbox type is now shown as Federated user"?

Thanks,

Alex