View members of a dynamic distribution group in Exchange Online

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Use Exchange Online PowerShell to view the list of recipients for a Dynamic Distribution group (DDG). You can't view members of a dynamic distribution in the Exchange admin center (EAC).

Do not use the old procedure for viewing members. The old procedure returns all users that satisfy the DDG filters at the time you run the command. The calculated list of members that are stored on the DDG object are not returned.

Important

If your tenant resides in a government cloud, including GCC, GCC High, or DoD, Dynamic Distribution groups function differently.

See Using Dynamic Distribution groups in a government cloud for steps on how to view members.

To view the members of a DDG, replace <DDGIdentity> with the name, alias, or email address of the DDG and run the following command in Exchange Online PowerShell. The command returns the calculated list of members that's stored on the dynamic distribution group object.

Get-DynamicDistributionGroupMember -Identity <DDGIdentity>

For detailed parameter and syntax information, see Get-DynamicDistributionGroupMember.

Refresh the membership of a DDG

If your DDG membership list isn't updated after the next 24-hour refresh interval, you can force a membership refresh by replacing <DDGIdentity> with the name, alias, or email address of the DDG and running the following command in Exchange Online PowerShell:

Set-DynamicDistributionGroup -Identity <DDGIdentity> -ForceMembershipRefresh

For detailed syntax and parameter information, see Set-DynamicDistributionGroup

Note

You can run the refresh command only after more than one hour has passed since the last membership refresh.

Dynamic distribution groups are distribution groups whose membership is periodically calculated based on specific recipient properties that are used as filters (precanned filters for custom filters). For more information, see Manage dynamic distribution groups.

Tip

Having problems? Ask for help in the Exchange forums. Visit the forums at Exchange Online or Exchange Online Protection.