Convert Linked Mailbox to User Mailbox in Exchange 2010

Hello Guys, Today we are going to discuss about conversion process of Linked Mailbox to User Mailbox. It is really good for me when I share my experiences and expertise with you guys, because blog writing leads me towards innovation & learning new things. As you know that I had written about Creating Linked Mailboxes in Exchange Server 2010/13/16 in my previous blog post.

Linked mailbox conversion is necessary in some conditions when an Organization try to migrate Exchange Server mailboxes to Office 365. Because Linked mailboxes can not be migrated to Office 365 or any other Exchange Server Environment.

As you might know that Linked mailboxes are those mailboxes which are linked to external accounts in a forest. The perfect example of Linked mailboxes are resource forest where user objects are connected with user mailboxes in an exchange forest but logon service cannot be accessed by user objects. Exchange Admin must link mailbox objects to user objects from Exchange forest to External Account Forest for accessing logon services. Lets proceed now towards the discussion about Linked mailboxes conversion process to User Mailboxes.

There is one thing which you should know about that Conversion of Linked mailboxes to User mailboxes is not possible using Exchange Management Console or Exchange Admin Centre. Therefore you have to go through with Execution of Commands by running them in PowerShell or Exchange Management Shell.

Conversion of a User Mailbox to Linked Mailbox

Before going for conversion of Linked mailboxes to User Mailboxes we will first discuss about conversion of a Mailbox to linked Mailbox with the help of PowerShell commands. Just follow below steps for Conversion:

1. First of all we have to assign permissions to the user. In my case Administrator is user. Run below command to assign permission:
   Syntax: New-ManagementRoleAssignment -Role “Mailbox Import Export” -User “Domain\UserName”
   Command: New-ManagementRoleAssignment -Role “Mailbox Import Export” -User “MAILTEST\Administrator”
2. Run below command to disconnect mailbox object from user object in an Active Directory.
   Command: Disable-Mailbox -Identity UserName
3. Run below command for creating credential object.
   Command: $cr = Get-Credential>
4. Now run below command to reconnect mailbox object to user object.
   Connect-Mailbox -Identity UserName -Database “Mailbox Database” -LinkedDomainController DCName -LinkedMasterAccount mailidofMasterAccount -LinkedCredential $cr

Conversion of a Linked Mailbox to User Mailbox

Now we are going to convert linked mailbox to user mailbox. Just follow below steps:

1. First run below command for assigning permissions to the user account as we did in conversion of a mailbox to Linked Mailbox.
   Command: New-ManagementRoleAssignment -Role “Mailbox Import Export” -User “Domain\UserName”
2. Now we have to run below command to set LinkedMasterAccount parameter as null and like this we will convert linked mailbox to user mailbox.
   Command: Set-User -Identity abc@domainname.com -LinkedMasterAccount $null

Conclusion

We discussed about conversion process of Linked mailboxes to user mailboxes using PowerShell Commands and also discussed about the process of conversion of simple mailbox to linked mailboxes.

In my next post I will write about moving mailboxes in exchange server database. So keep looking at my exchange server guide blog.

Thanks for reading.