How do I REALLY Export Distribution List Members / Recipients

Question

For security reasons, we would like to periodically pull a consolidated report that shows EVERY email address included on EVERY distribution list.  We're a non-profit, volunteer run organization who does not have staff to perpetually be checking list membership through the clunky interface.  We certainly do not have the resources of a professional IT department to write powershell scripts to create these reports periodically.

We decided to outsource to Microsoft to make these kinds of things easy for us cost effectively.  They are failing.

The article at the address listed below is WRONG.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice\_o365admin-mso\_password-mso\_o365b/exporting-distribution-groups-from-office-365/e7955e69-6438-445f-93ec-f23b06c7b003

Firstly, you must change to classic exchange admin center.  Then you can get to the options listed.  Using the downgraded admin center (a.k.a., new Exchange admin center) you do not get an option of fields to export.

You'll notice a distinct lack of Members as an export option in the image below.

Email Addresses provides a list of valid SMTP and SPO email addresses that can be used to send to the distribution list.  It does not provide members.  The "new Exchange admin center" provides a lot of data fields but still does not enumerate group members / distribution list recipients.

Acceptable responses:

1)  Use the WEB ONLY interface this way to get a report of distribution list recipients

2)  MS 365 cannot do this

Unacceptable responses:

1)  Anything with any reference to a script

2)  Anything with manually examining every distribution list

3)  Anything with a link to a previous question / discussion which lies to us about what to do

Life moves too fast for software that doesn't work and/or doesn't meet requirements.

Answer 1

Hello VP Operations,

Based on my tests and researches, it is not feasible to export distribution list members using UI interface. We can only export the members via Windows PowerShell. To do that, the steps are as follows:

1. Open Windows PowerShell and connect to Exchange Online PowerShell. Here are the commands:

Install-Module ExchangeOnlineManagement (Enter Y to install the module)

Connect-ExchangeOnline (Sign in using admin account and password)

2. Then run the following script to get a csv file about Distribution list.

$Groups = Get-DistributionGroup

$Groups | ForEach-Object {

$group = $_.Name

$members = ''

Get-DistributionGroupMember $group | ForEach-Object {

   **$members=$\_.Name**

New-Object -TypeName PSObject -Property @{

   **GroupName = $group**

   **Members = $members**

   **EmailAddress = $\_.PrimarySMTPAddress**

}}

} | Export-CSV "C:\DistributionGroupMember.csv" -NoTypeInformation -Encoding UTF8

Here is a screenshot about the result I got:

If you have any other requirement, please feel free to let me know.

Regards,

Seven

Answer 2

Another method of printing out a membership list for a Distro List is through Azure Active Directory Admin Center.

In Azure, you can go to Groups >> Members >> Bulk Operations >> Download Members. You will need to have permissions to access Azure AD admin center.

Answer 3

I would like to also voice our company's disappointment that the option has been removed from the GUI. Why can't we have both? I am a Windows user for the GUI but MS seems to take away more and more functionality from the GUI and force us to use PowerShell. If I liked PowerShell, I would probably like Linux also. I do not like Linux or things taking longer to do now because I have to search how to do it and copy paste a bunch of commands.

I will also be post this on the user voice service.

Answer 4

"Based on my tests and researches, it is not feasible to export distribution list members using UI interface" is useful. It tells us it cannot be done.

The rest of the response is ridiculous. It has no practical application in the real world except to open gaping security holes on computers of people who are lucky if they can spell information security and who probably use the term insecure instead of unsecure (just because most spell checkers don't know the word).

Who knows the default settings for PowerShell running stored scripts such as a .ps1? Why is that the default setting for PowerShell scripts?

I'll have to research the authentication and ticketing system(s) used for cross domain PowerShell scripting as well as the transport mechanism before I would even begin to recommend such a practice. I am not familiar with the underlying security system for Install-Module ExchangeOnlineManagement and Connect-ExchangeOnline.

Respectfully,

Robert Dunn
VP Operations

Answer 5

Well, the user voice service is no longer a thing so I guess, as usual, we get the short end of the stick.