Move an Exchange Online mailbox to the on-premises organization

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Applies to: Office 365, Exchange Online

In a hybrid deployment, mailboxes are located in both your on-premises and Exchange Online organizations. As part of on-going recipient management, you’ll often have a need to move mailboxes between the two organizations. For example, a user is moving departments or a manager is being assigned a new delegate. Although moving mailboxes from the on-premises organization to the Exchange Online organization uses the New Remote Move Request wizard, moving mailboxes from the Exchange Online organization to the on-premises organization requires a few additional configuration steps.

Moving Exchange Online Mailboxes to the On-Premises Organization

The steps necessary to move a mailbox from the Exchange Online organization to the on-premises organization depend on how the mailbox was originally added to the Exchange Online organization:

  • Created in the Exchange Online organization   If the mailbox was created in the Exchange Online organization, you need to perform some steps before you can move the mailbox back to the on-premises organization. See the “Configure on-premises remote mailbox” section later in this topic for more information.

  • Moved to the Exchange Online organization   If the mailbox was moved to the Exchange Online organization, no additional steps are necessary before you move the mailbox. You can move the mailbox back to the on-premises organization by following the procedure described in the “Move mailbox to the on-premises organization” section later in this topic.

To learn how to move a mailbox to the Exchange Online organization, see the topic for the version of Exchange installed in your on-premises organization:

Note

These topics assume that you've configured a hybrid organization using the Exchange Server Deployment Assistant (ExDeploy). For more information, see: Exchange Server Deployment Assistant and click Hybrid.

Configure on-premises remote mailbox

If the Exchange Online mailbox that you want to move to the on-premises organization was originally created in the Exchange Online organization, you’ll need to configure the ExchangeGUID property on the associated on-premises remote mailbox. This step is necessary because, when the mailbox is created in the Exchange Online organization, the value stored in the ExchangeGUID property on the Exchange Online mailbox isn’t synchronized back to the associated on-premises remote mailbox. To move a mailbox, the value stored in the ExchangeGUID property must be identical on the Exchange Online mailbox and on the associated on-premises remote mailbox.

Use the following steps to configure the ExchangeGUID property on the on-premises remote mailbox:

  1. Open the Exchange Management Shell on your hybrid server.

  2. Check to see whether the ExchangeGUID property on the on-premises remote mailbox is set by running the following command.

    Get-RemoteMailbox <alias of Exchange Online mailbox to move> | Format-List ExchangeGUID

  3. If the ExchangeGUID property returned in step 2 is all zeros, continue with step 4. Otherwise, skip to step 7.

  4. Open Windows PowerShell on the hybrid server (do not use the Exchange Management Shell window) and connect to Exchange Online PowerShell.

    For more information about how to connect to Exchange Online PowerShell, see: Configure management interfaces in an Exchange 2003 hybrid deployment

  5. Use the following command to retrieve the ExchangeGUID of the mailbox you want to move, and copy it or write it down.

    Get-Mailbox <alias of mailbox to move> | Format-List ExchangeGUID

  6. In the Shell window, use the following command to set the value of the ExchangeGUID property on the on-premises remote mailbox to the value of the ExchangeGUID property retrieved in step 5.

    Set-RemoteMailbox <alias of Exchange Online mailbox to move> -ExchangeGUID <GUID>

  7. Repeat steps 1-6 for each additional mailbox you want to move to the on-premises organization.

  8. On your Active Directory synchronization server, open DirSyncConfigShell.psc1 and then run the following command to force directory replication.

    Start-OnlineCoexistenceSync

After you’ve configured the on-premises remote mailboxes associated with the mailboxes you want to move, see the “Move mailbox to the on-premises organization” section to learn how to move the mailboxes to the on-premises organization.

Move mailbox to the on-premises organization

Use the following steps to move a mailbox from the Exchange Online organization back to the on-premises organization.

Important

If you move a mailbox from the Exchange Online organization to an Exchange 2003 or Exchange 2007 server in your on-premises organization, messages in the Recoverable Items folder of the mailbox aren't preserved after the move. Messages in the Recoverable Items folder are preserved only when moving a mailbox from the Exchange Online organization to an on-premises Exchange 2010 server. The Recoverable Items folder is known as the dumpster in Exchange 2007.
For more information about the Recoverable Items folder, see: Recoverable Items folder

Note

The target mailbox database where you want to move the mailbox to can’t be located on a server running the Hybrid Edition of Exchange 2010.

  1. On your hybrid server, open the EMC.

  2. Navigate to the Recipient Configuration container in the Exchange Online organization node.

  3. Right-click the mailboxes you want to move to the on-premises organization, and then select New Remote Move Request.

  4. On the Introduction screen, click Next.

  5. Verify the on-premises organization is listed in the Target forest list box.

  6. In the FQDN of the Mailbox Replication Service proxy server in the target forest text box, specify the FQDN of the on-premises hybrid server. For example, mail2.contoso.com.

  7. Select Use the following target forest’s credential.

  8. Specify the username and password of an administrative account in the on-premises organization, and then click Next.

  9. Click Browse next to Target Delivery Domain, and then select the delivery domain for your on-premises organization. For example, contoso.com.

  10. In the Remote Target Database, specify the destination Exchange 2003 mailbox database. The format depends on the version of Exchange where the target database is located:

    • Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2007   Use the format <server>\<storage group>\<database name>. For example, Ex2007\First Storage Group\Mailbox Database

    • Exchange 2010   Use the format <server>\<database name>. For example, Ex2010\Sales Database.

  11. Click Next, and then click New.

  12. The mailbox should now move to the on-premises organization. After completion, the wizard should report a success.

    Important

    Due to a known issue, you may receive an Exception error stating that a type couldn’t be loaded. You can ignore this exception.

  13. On your Active Directory synchronization server, open DirSyncConfigShell.psc1, and then run the following command to force directory replication.

    Start-OnlineCoexistenceSync

How do I know this worked?

When you move existing user mailboxes to the on-premises organization, the successful completion of the New Remote Move Request wizard will be your first indication that moving the mailbox worked as expected.

Because the mailbox move process takes several minutes to complete, you can also verify that the move is working correctly by opening the EMC and selecting the Exchange Online organization Recipient Configuration node. Select the Move Request node to display the move status for the mailboxes selected in the New Remote Move Request wizard. The value of the Move Request Status is Moving during the mailbox move and is Completed when the mailbox has successfully moved to the on-premises organization.

Learn more at: View Move Request Properties

Having problems? Ask for help in the Office 365 forums. To access the forums, you'll need to sign in using an account that's granted administrator access to your cloud-based service. Visit the forums at: Office 365 Forums