Read time 6 minutes
Summary: Office 365 is amongst the best cloud platforms that can give you the freedom to manage your email communication very efficiently. For its efficient use, it is necessary to know the different types of mailboxes in Office 365 and their uses. Let’s read about each Office 365 mailbox types in detail to clear all the confusion.
Microsoft 365 gives a business multiple benefits that affect the overall professional email communication, but most organizations don’t know about the different mailbox types in Office 365. This impacts their performance as they are not utilizing the benefits offered correctly.
The business and enterprise-based plans have Exchange Online in them, and the Administrator can create multiple types of mailboxes in them. Apart from the user mailboxes, several mailboxes are making communication easier.
Types of Office 365 Mailboxes
There is a lot of confusion revolving around Microsoft Office 365 mailboxes. Some users usually don’t understand the mailboxes properly.
There are multiple types of mailboxes in Office 365. Some of these mailbox types are paid while some can be created and accessed for free.
| Mailbox Type | License Needed? | Default Storage | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| User Mailbox | Yes | 50GB to 100GB | Individual employees |
| Shared Mailbox | No (up to 50GB) | 50GB (up to 100GB with Plan 2 license) | Info@, Support@, and shared team inboxes |
| Resource Mailbox | No | 50GB | Meeting rooms, projectors, and car bookings |
| Archive Mailbox | Yes (included with user license) | 50GB to 1.5TB | Legal hold and long-term retention |
| Office 365 Groups | Yes (at least one licensed user) | Included with Groups | Team collaboration |
| Distribution Groups | No | N/A | Sending emails to multiple users without a shared inbox |
| Contacts | No | N/A | Managing external contacts in the Global Address List |
We will describe each of these mailbox types, and what is their proper use.
How Each Mailbox Type Works in Office 365?
Microsoft offers multiple Office 365 Mailbox types. Each mailbox has its own unique features. Let’s discuss about them one-by-one in detail:
User Mailbox
This is the first mailbox type that you will get by default after purchasing an Office 365 subscription that includes Exchange Online. It is a licensed mailbox and requires login. It is designed for personal mail and other items. In simple terms, it will be the mailbox that you will use to send emails, attachments, and messages to others.
You can have a specific domain email address for your primary mailbox. It can either be ending with your organization’s name or anything else. For example, it could be myname@mycompany.com
Shared Mailboxes
A shared mailbox is often created by the Office 365 admin, and then users are added to it as members. It is entirely free to create a shared mailbox in office 365 with storage of up to 50 GB. Shared mailboxes make it easy for a specific group to monitor and send email from a common email address, means if any user in a shared mailbox deletes a message, moves an email, or replies to an email from the inbox, then it will be reflected across all the users.
If you use it without a license, you will get only 50 GB storage, and if the storage exceeds, then you will have to purchase an Exchange online license for it. Moreover, it can be opened on the Outlook Web App or Outlook Desktop app if you have full permission to the shared mailbox.
Distribution Groups
Distribution groups are created to add specific members related to a team or project and send them emails simultaneously. Also, it is used to communicate with clients or customers with a single email. An email to the distribution group will be received by each member of the group (in their primary mailbox).
Office 365 Groups
Office 365 Groups were recently introduced by Microsoft to enhance collaborative work. You need to create a name and email address and then assign users. With Office 365 Groups, you get access to the mailbox, shared calendar, a document library stored in the cloud, a planner, a SharePoint site, and more.
Also, you are allowed to invite external guests to Office 365 Groups if you want someone to join the group for conversation. You can access all the Office 365 Group features on Outlook 2016, Outlook Web App, Outlook 2016 for Mac, and Outlook on Mobile.
Resource Mailboxes
Also known as an Equipment Mailbox or Room Mailbox, this type of mailbox is used to reserve and coordinate rooms and equipment. Equipment Mailbox is used for non-location-specific resources such as projectors, vehicles, etc. whereas Room Mailbox is used to assign location for a specific meeting or conference. If you include a resource mailbox in a meeting request or calendar item, it means you are reserving the resource for that specific time.
Archive Mailbox
Archive Mailbox is also known as In-Place Archive or Online Archive, Microsoft renamed it thrice, but it’s the same thing: a second mailbox attached to a user that holds old emails and wants to get rid of them without deleting. It acts as an additional storage, which helps in reducing primary mailbox size and improving overall performance. It initially offers 100GB space and later can be expanded up to 1.5TB using Auto-expanding archiving.
Contacts
Contacts in your Office 365 mailbox are actually external email addresses with contact information already added to the global address list. Adding any person to Contacts will allow you to add that person to the distribution group. For example, let’s say you have to send an external contact using distribution list, then you will have to add that email address as a contact, and then add that person to the distribution group.
How to Choose the Right Mailbox Type?
There are multiple factors which users should consider while choosing Office 365 Mailbox type for their business. They are as follows:
- Licensing cost and optimization: Avoid paying for multiple separate licenses by understanding which one fits best for your organization’s needs.
- Storage requirements: Users must know approximately how much storage they are going to require while choosing the best mailbox type.
- Collaboration and workflow: If the goal is to work on documents and chats, then choose M365 Groups, whereas if the goal is only to read/reply to shared incoming emails, choose Shared Mailbox.
Conclusion
In this article, we have discussed different types of mailboxes provided by Office 365. Though Office 365 data is extremely safe as per Microsoft, it is necessary in many situations to backup these mailboxes, including user mailboxes, shared mailboxes, and groups. And this can be done using an efficient tool like Kernel Office 365 Backup & Restore. This Office 365 Backup Tool offers multiple benefits that make the entire process smooth and risk-free. You can download and use the free trial version to make sure it meets your requirements.
Frequently Asked Questions
A. Office 365 offers multiple types of mailboxes to users designed for different business needs such as, User Mailbox, Shared Mailbox, Office 365 Group, Resource (Room/Equipment) Mailbox, and Archive Mailbox.
A. Shared Mailbox are better for centralized and functional email, whereas Office 365 Groups are superior for collaboration, providing shared calendars, SharePoint, and Teams access.
