Issue: How to forward mail to an external email address

Affects: Windows Server Operating Systems, Exchange 2003 & 2007

Solution/Process:

In Exchange Server 2003, mail for a recipient can be forwarded to an alternate recipient by modifying the recipient’s Delivery Options in ADUC | recipient -> properties | Exchange General tab.

If you need to forward mail to an external email address, you cannot simply type the address in Delivery Options. A (mail-enabled) Contact needs to be created in AD first, and Delivery Options modified to point to the Contact.

In Exchange Server 2007, these tasks remain the same. However, instead of using ADUC to accomplish them, you use the EMC or the shell (aka “EMS”). The new term for a Contact is MailContact.

To create a MailContact using the Exchange Management Console:

1. Expand Recipient Configuration | Mail Contact

2. In the Action pane, click New Mail Contact

3. To create a new Contact object, leave the default (New Contact) selected | click Next

4. Type First name, Last name

5. Click Edit to add the external email address

6. Click New to complete creation of new MailContact

To create a new MailContact using the Exchange Management Shell: New-MailContact -Name “Foo User” -ExternalEmailAddress “foo@externaldomain.com Next, we set the recipient’s Delivery Options to deliver to the alternate recipient.

To forward mail for a recipient to the MailContact using the Exchange Management Console:

1. Expand Recipient Configuration | Mailbox | select mailbox | properties | Mail Flow Settings tab | Delivery Options

2. Under Forwarding address, select the Forward to checkbox

3. Click Browse to select the MailContact

Modifying Delivery Options to forward email to an alternate recipient

4.( Optional): If a copy of the message needs to be delivered to both the external recipient and the original recipient’s mailbox, select the Deliver message to both forwarding address and mailbox

5. Click OK to close Delivery Options properties

6. Click OK to close recipient’s properties

Author: Keller Medlin