User Mailbox Management in Exchange online (Office 365)

Create a new mailbox in Exchange Online

Setup a new mailbox non-hybrid, non-AD synced environment only.

New-Mailbox -Alias sunil -Name "Sunil Chauhan" -FirstName Sunil -LastName Chauhan -DisplayName "Sunil Chauhan" -MicrosoftOnlineServicesID sunil@sunilchauhan.info -Password (ConvertTo-SecureString -String 'P@ssw0rd' -AsPlainText -Force) -ResetPasswordOnNextLogon $true

Delete or restore user mailboxes

Soft-deleted user mailboxes

A soft-deleted user mailbox is a mailbox that has been deleted using the Office 365 admin center or the Remove-Mailbox cmdlet in the Exchange Management Shell and has still been in the Azure active directory (Azure AD) recycle bin for less than 30 days.

Hard-deleted user mailboxes

A hard-deleted user mailbox is a mailbox that has been soft-deleted for more than 30 days, and the associated Azure active directory user has been hard-deleted or was deleted using the Remove-Mailbox -PermanentlyDelete cmd.

All mailbox content such as emails, contacts, and files will be permanently deleted.

Delete a user mailbox

A deleted mailbox stays in soft-deleted state for 30 days post which Mailbox is deleted permanently unless Litigation hold was not placed.

Remove-Mailbox -Identity "Sunil Chauhan"

Using Azure AD shell to delete a mailbox permanently.

Remove-MsolUser -UserPrincipalName <sunil chauhan> -RemoveFromRecycleBin true

Restore a user mailbox

Run the following cmd to undo a mailbox deletion.

Undo-SoftDeletedMailbox sunil@sunilchauhan.info -WindowsLiveID sunil@sunilchauhan.info -Password (ConvertTo-SecureString -String 'Pa$$word1' -AsPlainText -Force)

Restoring a user in a hybrid scenario

If the mailbox has been soft-deleted and the Azure active directory user that was associated with the mailbox has been hard-deleted from Azure Active Directory, you can use New-MailboxRestoreRequest to recover the mailbox.

Retrieve the GUID for the soft-deleted mailbox that you want to restore.

$SoftDeletedMbx = get-mailbox Sunil -SoftDeletedMailbox

This cmdlet will return a GUID of soft-deleted mailboxes.
Run the following cmdlet to restore the mailbox.

New-MailboxRestoreRequest -SourceMailbox $SoftDeletedMbx.Guid  -TargetMailbox <GUID from new target mailbox you've created>