Convert a User Mailbox to Shared & a Shared Mailbox to User mailbox in Office 365

Office 365 administrators can convert a regular mailbox to the shared mailbox so that more than one user can access it. Users associated with the shared mailbox will be able to access all the emails and calendar entries. That makes team work easier. Also, there are situations where a shared mailbox is to be converted to a user mailbox.

Here, we will discuss the conversion of shared mailbox to regular mailbox. Also, we will show how to convert a shared mailbox back to a regular mailbox.

NOTE: The user mailbox that you need to convert to a shared mailbox must have assigned a license (without a license, the option for conversion will not be available). After conversion, you can remove the license as you don’t need a license for shared mailbox if it holds data up to 50 GB only. To store more than 50 GB data, you must have a license assigned to the mailbox.

STEPS TO CONVERT REGULAR MAILBOX TO SHARED MAILBOX

To convert a regular mailbox to a shared mailbox, follow the given simple steps:

1. Log in to your Office 365 account. Go to Admin.



2. In the Office 365 admin center, choose the Active users option.



3. Choose the user mailbox which you want to convert to the shared mailbox. Click Mail Settings.



4. Then, click Convert to shared mailbox to convert your regular mailbox to a shared one.



5. Finally, click Convert to convert the mailbox to a shared mailbox.



6. Your mailbox has been converted to a shared mailbox.



We will now move to see how a shared mailbox can be converted to a regular mailbox in Office 365.

STEPS TO CONVERT A SHARED MAILBOX BACK TO A REGULAR MAILBOX

One can convert a shared mailbox to a regular mailbox easily by following the steps:

1. Login to your Office 365 account as administrator. Navigate to Office 365 Admin Center and select Exchange.



2. Go to Recipients>>Shared. Select the shared mailbox and then click Convert under Convert to regular mailbox.



3. A warning message will pop up asking for confirmation. Click Yes to continue.



Note: You need to assign a license and reset the password for mailbox after conversion.

4. The conversion will take a little time. After that, a completion message is displayed. Once completed, click Close to exit.





5. When you sign in to Office 365 again, you can find that this shared mailbox has been converted to a regular mailbox. The converted mailbox contains all the data of the shared mailbox.

Conclusion

Office 365, the most popular cloud email server nowadays, supports both regular and shared mailboxes. And, we have discussed how to convert regular and shared mailboxes to the other type in Office 365. Stay tuned to our blogs section to know more about Office 365 and Exchange.