How to Create a Recipient Filter

Use the following procedure to create a recipient filter.

Before You Begin

Before you perform the procedure in this topic, read Configuring Filtering and Controlling Spam.

The following permissions are required to perform this procedure:

• Member of the local administrators group and a member of a group that has had the Exchange Administrators role applied at the organizational level

Procedure

To create a recipient filter

1. Start Exchange System Manager: Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Microsoft Exchange, and then click System Manager.

2. In the console tree, expand Global Settings, right-click Message Delivery, and then click Properties.

3. In Message Delivery Properties, click the Recipient Filtering tab.

   The Recipient Filtering tab in the Message Delivery Properties dialog box

   

4. To add the address of a specific recipient, click Add, and then, in Add Recipient, type the recipient address, and then click OK. The recipient address must meet the following criteria:

   • The recipient address must contain an at sign (@).

   • Display names must be enclosed in quotation marks with the @ sign immediately following. Ensure that there are no spaces between the quotation marks and the @ symbol For example, if you want to filter mail for a recipient with the display name of Ted Bremer in the contoso.com domain, you type:

     "Ted Bremer"@contoso.com

   • Use an asterisk (*) to denote all members of a domain or simply enter @domain. For example, to filter mail that is sent to all users with the domain suffix of contoso.com, type either:

     *@contoso.com

     @contoso.com

5. To filter mail that is sent to users who do not exist in Microsoft® Active Directory® directory service, select the Filter recipients who are not in the Directory check box.

   Note

   Selecting the Filter recipients who are not in the Directory check box can potentially allow malicious senders to discover valid e-mail addresses in your Exchange Server organization.