Office 365 Forward Shared Mailbox to Multiple Users Together

Admins who operate Office 365 forward shared mailbox to multiple users due to business requirements.

However, because of Microsoft’s secure-by-default principle, the email forwarding mechanism is severely limited. Users who are new to M365 environments are often unaware of this strict pre-enforced boundary on email communication.

This leads to confusion whenever they try to share/forward an email message. So a custom forwarding protocol is a must. The problem lies in balancing user requirements with organization security.

Don’t worry, here we will break down all the official methods in an easy-to-understand language starting off at the admin level.

Prerequisites to Forwarding Mail to Multiple Users in Office 365

If you are planning to include the people on remote domains you must set it up separately.

As the classic EAC is no longer there admins have no other choice than to follow the steps for the new version.

• Go to Mail flow > Remote domains.
• Click + Add a remote domain.
• Enter a name for the domain and the full domain name (use * to cover subdomains). Click Next.
• Define Out of Office and Automatic reply settings (allow automatic forwarding here). Click Next.
• 
• Specify delivery and non-delivery report settings. Click Next.
• Define Rich-text and Character Set settings. Click Next.
  Review settings, and Save.

Another point that admins must keep in mind is that email forwarding, once set up, only applies to mail that arrives in the user’s inbox after the rule is activated.

As you can only put in one email account while configuring the email forward mechanism we need to come up with a trick.

Which is to make a distribution list and use it as the target account. Once set up the internal M365 rules takeover and spread out the email to all those accounts that are in the distribution list.

To make a Distribution List exportable

• Login to the admin center
• Select Teams and groups > Active teams and groups > Distribution list.
• Click Add a Distribution List.
  
• Enter a name, and description, and click Next.
• Assign owners by selecting users, then click Next.
  
• Set up a group email address and decide if external senders can email the group, then click Next.
• Add members, then click Next.
• Review the settings and click Create Group.

The last check to make before we proceed to the actual steps is to check the account type you are using. It must be an admin account with EAC access.

Admin-Level Steps to Add Forwarding to User and Shared Mailbox

The account that needs the forwarding feature must have a valid live M365 license attached to it. One way to bypass the license requirement is to transform a regular user mailbox into a shared mailbox. However, doing this also changes the way the forwarding rule applies to the mailbox.

Once the prerequisites are complete the steps are quite simple.

• Visit the M365 admin center (not Exchange), go to Users > Active users, select the user, then click the Mail tab and choose Manage email forwarding.
• Enable Forward all emails, enter the distribution list ID as the forwarding address, and save changes.

Note: Don’t delete the user or remove their license, or else forwarding will stop.

To add a similar feature and complete Office 365 forward shared mailbox to multiple users request follow these steps:

• In the admin center, go to Teams & groups > Shared mailboxes.
• Select the shared mailbox and click Edit under Email Forwarding.
• Check Forward all emails sent to this mailbox, enter the distribution list, and click Save.

This completes all the steps that admins can do at their level. Next up we cover the user level, forwarding, and rule setups that make bulk Office 365 email forwarding possible.

How do Users of Office 365 Forward Shared Mailbox to Multiple Users at Their Level?

There are two methods one is automatic forwarding and another one is rules setup. Unfortunately, it is currently not possible to add forwarding rules nor can you set up rules in the mobile app variant.

So, users have to rely on the desktop clients or the web app. Let us discuss the steps involved for each of them one by one. The UI of the web app and the new desktop client version are quite similar as are the steps.

Auto Forwarding in New Outlook or Web App

• Take your cursor towards the top right corner and click on the Settings cog.
• Select Mail > Forwarding & IMAP (on the Web) or Email > Forwarding if you are using the Desktop variant.

If this is your first time setting up a forwarding via the web app then you might have to log in again for verification purposes.

• Toggle the Enable forwarding switch, type in the forwarding email address, and press Save.

You can add a group email address, this will allow you to effectively send out a forward to more than two accounts at a time.

Setup Custom Rules in the New Client/Web App

In the Settings itself.

• Go to Mail/Email > Rules and click Add new rule.
• Name your rule and set the condition to Apply to all messages.
• Add the action and choose any one option under the Route area i.e. Forward to or Forward as attachment, Redirect to then enter the forwarding email address.
• Optionally, add more actions or exceptions.
• Choose Stop processing more rules if needed.

Use Classic Client to Auto Forward Messages via Rules

There is no specialized auto-forward option you just have to select specific options to simulate a similar action. You can try to do the following when your desktop-based OneDrive app stops working.

• Step 1: In Outlook, go to Home > Move > Rules > Manage Rules & Alerts.
• Step 2: Click New Rule, then select Apply rule on messages I receive and click Next.
• Step 3: Don’t select any conditions, then click Next and select Yes when prompted.
• Step 4: Under What do you want to do with the message? select any one out of these options:
  • forward it to people or public group 
  • forward it to people or public group as an attachment. 
  • redirect it to people or public group and stop processing more rules.
• Step 5: Click the people or public group link, enter the forwarding email address, and click OK.
• Step 6: Click Finish, then Apply, and OK.

Conclusion

Now, admins should no longer face any problem with Office 365 forward shared mailbox to multiple users’ requests. Here, we discussed the exact settings admins should tweak to allow user-level email forwarding to multiple addresses simultaneously. Moreover, like any other scenario involving official mail, it is important to keep a backup of the conversations. For that, use the trustworthy SysTools Office 365 backup tool.