Configure incoming e-mail for a site, list, or library

Article
01/10/2017

Applies To: Office SharePoint Server 2007

This Office product will reach end of support on October 10, 2017. To stay supported, you will need to upgrade. For more information, see , Resources to help you upgrade your Office 2007 servers and clients.

Topic Last Modified: 2016-11-14

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 site owners can integrate incoming e-mail with their sites. This new feature lets teams aggregate e-mail messages within SharePoint lists and libraries. Site members can archive e-mail messages that they send to other team members without the extra step of opening the SharePoint site to upload the e-mail content. This is possible because most list and library types in Office SharePoint Server 2007 can be assigned a unique e-mail address. Users who have permissions to create a list can also create an e-mail address for the list when they create the list in an e-mail–enabled site. Site members can include the e-mail addresses of these lists when they send e-mail messages. Or, they can send an e-mail message to a distribution list that contains the e-mail addresses of these lists together with e-mail addresses of other site members.

Incoming e-mail support is configured at the farm level in the SharePoint Central Administration Web site. This is configured in the Operations section under Topology and Services. E-mail support enabled at the farm level is by default enabled at the site collection level.

When e-mail support is enabled at the farm level, incoming e-mail settings are available for sites, subsites, and lists that exist below the farm level. When a subsite is created, an e-mail alias is assigned to a list only when the following criteria are met:

The SharePoint Directory Management Service is enabled to create groups.
Unique permissions have been configured for the site.
The user specifies a distribution group alias for the site members group.

If you install the SharePoint Directory Management Service on a farm or server, the Central Administration application pool account that is used by Office SharePoint Server 2007 must have the Create, delete, and manage user accounts right to the container that you specify in Active Directory directory service. The preferred way to do this is by delegating these rights to the Central Administration application pool account. An Active Directory administrator must set up the organizational unit and delegate the Create, delete, and manage user accounts right to the container. The advantage of using the SharePoint Directory Management Service on a remote farm is that you do not have to install and configure Active Directory on every farm.

After incoming e-mail is enabled at the farm and site collection levels in the Central Administration Web site, you can enable and then configure e-mail support for lists and libraries in the sites. This can include the document libraries, picture libraries, form libraries, announcements lists, calendar lists, blogs, and discussion boards.

Note

You cannot add content to lists in Meeting Workspace sites by sending an e-mail message.

In Office SharePoint Server 2007, a site owner can enable and configure incoming e-mail support for the following items:

Document, picture, or form library
Announcements list
Calendar list
Discussion board
Blog

You can receive e-mail messages in the SharePoint list, document libraries, or discussion board for which you enable and configure incoming e-mail support.

When you create a list or library, you can enable incoming e-mail support for one or more of these types of lists or libraries, if incoming e-mail support is enabled in the Web site. The procedures in this task include specifying the e-mail address for the list or library. However, all other configuration options are set to the default values when you create a list or library.