User Mailboxes and Shared Mailboxes

Exchange Server supports user mailboxes and shared mailboxes. User mailboxes are used by people who log in to their mailbox to send and receive e-mail. Shared mailboxes do not have an active user account, but represent a department, group, or service like OpenEFT or BillFiler. Shared mailboxes have a disabled Active Directory account and do not need an Exchange client access license or an Exchange Online license.

Users must be granted permissions to interact with a shared mailbox. Permissions are granted to allow users to:

  • Access a shared mailbox and work with the items in the shared mailbox.
  • Impersonate the shared mailbox and send email as that mailbox.
  • Send email on behalf of a shared mailbox.

Access normally works without a problem in a most Exchange environments, but things can be different and not work as you expect. 


Granting Send As Permission

The Send As permission is not a mailbox permission. Instead, it is an Active Directory permission.