How to copy incoming/outgoing emails to another mailbox in Exchange 2016/2019?

Aftab Alam | Updated On - November 04, 2022 |

Read time 6 minutes

Exchange administrators will have to perform various tasks on data like copying, backing up, and restoring. The latest versions of Exchange Server and Office 365 come with many features for these tasks. Also, many professional tools are there to aid in many of these tasks. Here, we will talk about copying incoming/outgoing emails to another mailbox in different versions of Exchange.

Copy Incoming/outgoing Emails to Another Mailbox

In any organization, Exchange, administrators may need to access the emails of a mailbox in another mailbox for auditing or legal purposes. This may become a frequent requirement for managerial or review purposes too. But sending or forwarding individual emails to another mailbox is a tedious task. Fortunately, Exchange Server provides some easy ways to copy the incoming/outgoing emails to another mailbox to access them instantly.

You can create a Transport Rule in Exchange Management Console or enable forwarding for the mailbox. In the present article, we will go through all these solutions and solve our issues smartly.

This method is for the older versions of Exchange, Exchange 2007, and Exchange 2010.

1. Open Exchange Management Console, go to the left-pane, and expand the folders. Go to Organization Configuration>>Hub Transport.
2. On the Hub Transport page, right-click and choose the option New Transport Rule.
3. On the New Transport Rule page, you need to go step by step to create a new rule. The first stage is the Introduction. Provide a new name to the rule and click Next.
4. The second stage is Conditions, where you need to use the checkbox to select various conditions that will apply to the rule. Then you can click the People icon to select the user accounts where the rule will be applied. Then click Next.
5. The next stage is Actions; here, you can use the checkboxes to select the various actions for the Transport Rule. After making the changes, click Next.
6. The next stage is Exceptions that will allow you to make some adjustments to the rule. You can click the Accounts option and select the various account that will have exceptions to the rule.
7. The next stage is Create Rule, where the tool will show the settings to create the account. Click New.
8. The Completion page will provide you a summary of all your changes that you have applied. Click Finish and a new transport rule have been created.

Another method is to forward the emails to another account of the same organization. You can complete it through the Exchange Admin Center and Exchange Management Shell both. This is possible only in the recent versions of Exchange Server.

This method is for the latest versions of Exchange like Exchange 2016 and 2019.

1. Log in to Exchange Admin Center and go to Mailboxes under the Recipients category.
   
2. In the list of mailboxes, select the mailbox that you want to set up the mail forwarding for. Click Edit.
   
3. Click Mailbox Features.
   
4. Go to Mail Flow and select View details.
   
5. Check the Enable Forwarding box and click the Browse button. It will open the Select Recipient page.
   
6. Select the user that you want to forward all the emails to. Check the ‘Deliver message to both forwarding address and mailbox’ checkbox in case you want to get copies of the emails to both recipients and forwarding email. Click OK and then click Save.
   
7. To check the changed settings, you can check the Mailbox Features and go to the View details (under Mail Flow) pane and see the new mail forwarding settings.

Run the cmdlets:

The command will forward all the emails coming to Jacob Doherty’s account to another email address test1@test.com.

Conclusion

Exchange administrators can change user mailbox settings to forward the emails sent/received by a mailbox to another when there is a requirement. However, it may not be technically easy if you want to do the same for all the mailboxes. Another feasible way is to back up all the mailboxes to the local system. This can be done using Kernel Office 365 Backup & Restore tool. It will let you back up all the emails to PST files. It will later allow you to restore Office 365 mailboxalong with their attachments and the sender’s details. It will be helpful to you in meeting your compliance requirements.