Power Automate Flow for shared mailbox

Question

Power Automate Flow for shared mailbox

Krzysztof Wiech 0

Hi,

Can I use my email address and personal login that has been granted access to shared mailbox address in order to create Power Automate Flow for Outlook?
Desired outcome is that all email that are received in shared mailbox with the address added in CC to be moved to separate folder.

Additionally, sender should receive automatic reply informing that due to fact that our shared address was added in "CC" field - we will not process/review this particular email.

Some time ago there was possibility to set this up with use of rules and template automatic reply.

Thank you in advance.

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3 answers

Your answer

Answer 1

Is the mailbox being monitored a shared mailbox or a personal mailbox?
Is there any reason why you are not using rules in the browser-based Outlook on the Web?

https://outlook.office.com/mail/(Shared Mailbox address: xxx @zzz.onmicrosoft.com)

<Japanese>
監視対象のメールボックスは共有メールボックスですか？個人のメールボックスですか？
ブラウザ版Outlook on the Webにてルールを利用しないのは何か理由がありますか？

https://outlook.office.com/mail/(Shared Mailbox address: xxx @zzz.onmicrosoft.com)

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Answer 2

Hi Krzysztof Wiech,

I hope you're having a productive day.

In Power Automate connectors list, they have trigger for when new emails arrive in shared mailboxes and you can easily set them up. To find this trigger, you can search for " Office 365 Outlook" or navigate through the connectors list.

User's image However, since you also want to use your personal account in shared mailbox, it's good to remember that in some organizations, using a personal connection for shared flows is considered a governance risk and service accounts may be required instead. If the flow is business-critical, it's recommended to use a service account (or shared mailbox identity) rather than your own account.

The minimal configuration requires selecting the shared mailbox you want to monitor. This mailbox must be one that you have access to within your organization.

Shared Mailbox Address: Select the email address of the shared mailbox from the drop-down list.
Folder: Choose which folder to monitor within the shared mailbox. By default, this is set to "Inbox," but you can select other folders.

The trigger fires when any email arrives in the shared mailbox. You must then check if the mailbox was in the CC field. If yes, then Move email to a specific folder

Clicking "Show advanced options" reveals additional settings that give you more control over which emails trigger your flow.

User's image

To: Filter emails based on the recipients in the To field. You can specify one or more email addresses, separated by semicolons.
CC: Similar to the To filter, but checks the CC field instead.
To or CC: These are similar to the previous ones but a combination of both. So, if an email exists in either "To" or "CC," it will show up.

Please note that, the CC only returns if there's data. If the email doesn't have anyone in CC, then the JSON field is not even returned. So, if you want to access the information, don't forget to include the "?" operator to be sure your Flow doesn't fail, like this.

triggerOutputs()?['body/ccRecipients']

The CC and TO are also not arrays. Since both fields could have multiple email addresses, one could think that the field is an array, but it's not. It's a string separated by ";". So if you need an array with the CC or TO fields, you need to use the "split" function like this:

split(triggerOutputs()?['body/ccRecipients'],';')

Your requirement "Only send auto-reply if the mailbox is in CC" requires Send-as permission for the shared mailbox.

You can find guidance towards this via this link: Send Emails from a Shared Mailbox in Power Automate (Without Full Access)

However, I believe you require more in-depth guidance or support for these steps, I’d recommend posting your query in the Microsoft Power Automate Community. This is a dedicated channel for Power Apps discussions. The reason I suggest posting a new topic there is that in the general Q&A Forum, resources and expertise on Power Automate are limited. In the Microsoft Power Platform Community Forum, you’ll find the most qualified group of respondents, and other partners who regularly read the forums can share their knowledge or learn from your interaction.

User's image

I hope this information is helpful. Should you have any further questions or need additional assistance, feel free to reach out.

Thank you again for your understanding and cooperation.

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.

Answer 3

Yes. A personal account that has been granted access to a shared mailbox can be used to build a Power Automate flow that processes mail for that shared mailbox.

There are two main pieces to the scenario:

Move messages sent to the shared mailbox (where the shared address is in CC) to a separate folder.
Send an automatic reply from the shared mailbox explaining that CC’d messages are not processed.

1. Sending from the shared mailbox in Power Automate

To send replies from the shared mailbox rather than the personal account, use the Outlook connector action designed for shared mailboxes:

Use Send an email from a shared mailbox (V2).
In the action, specify the shared mailbox address. When this action is used, the email is sent directly from the shared mailbox and appears in that mailbox’s Sent folder.
Ensure the account used to create the flow has the necessary permissions to the shared mailbox; the distribution list or shared mailbox admin must grant these permissions first.

Reference behavior:

“Use the Send an email from a shared mailbox (V2) action, and specify the shared mailbox address to send email from a shared mailbox. The distribution list admin must first give you permissions to the shared mailbox. When you use this action, email appears in the Sent folder of your shared mailbox because you're sending it from that account directly.”

2. Automatic replies from the shared mailbox (global auto‑reply)

If a general automatic reply is preferred (not flow-based, but mailbox-level), this can be configured directly in Outlook on the web for the shared mailbox:

Sign in to Outlook on the web.
Select the profile image and choose Open another mailbox.
Enter and open the shared mailbox.
Go to Settings → Automatic replies.
Configure the automatic reply message.

This sets a standard automatic reply for the shared mailbox, independent of Power Automate.

3. Using a shared mailbox in Power Automate Desktop (if applicable)

If Power Automate for desktop is used with Outlook installed:

To retrieve email from the shared mailbox, use Retrieve email messages from Outlook and set the Account field to the shared mailbox name.
To send from the shared mailbox, use Send email message through Outlook, choose Other mailbox in Send email message from, and set Send from to the shared mailbox address while Account is the main account.

This allows flows running on the desktop to act on the shared mailbox using the personal login that has access.

4. Shared mailbox support in Outlook connector

For cloud flows, shared mailbox support is available via an optional mailbox parameter on certain Outlook actions. For operations that support it, specify the shared mailbox address so the flow targets that mailbox instead of the personal mailbox.

If the flow was created before shared mailbox support was added, the operations may need to be updated to explicitly specify the shared mailbox address.

References: