Exchange 2013 Email Copy Goes to Administrator Mailbox

Hello readers, Today in this article, I am going to describe about an error or we can say it problem too. But in general it is neither a problem nor an error. It is the result of some activities performed by Exchange Server Administrator without having any intention to do it. These type of settings are done by Exchange Administrator for better management of security, like for analyzing the behavior of user mailboxes for a specific time.

Scenario 1

I have newly installed an Exchange Server 2013, but after installation I am facing an issue during sending the emails. I created several user mailboxes and there was already existing mailbox which was named as Admin. So, whenever I am sending an email from one account to another account or mailbox then I see that a single copy of each email messages are also going into Admin mailbox or account. I checked this after logging into OWA (Outlook Web Access) and accessed all user mailboxes.

Scenario 2

In my company, I manages Exchange Server but since last 2 days I am getting an issue while logging into Administrator account of Exchange. After logging into admin account, I see that a lot of emails are coming into the inbox folder. I think, all these emails are those messages which are being transferred among all employees. Which is not a good behavior of Exchange Server 2016. I am trying to resolve this error, but couldn't get it done.

Cause of Error "Email Copy Goes to Administrator Mailbox"

There is only one cause of this problem which is, Administrator or other user accounts which have given that impersonation rights have created or modified the journal settings of Exchange Server.

Way to Stop Email Copy from Going into Administrator Mailbox

It is possible to stop this behavior of Exchange Server mailbox and keep the privacy of each user mailboxes maintained. Let's have a look for modification of Exchange journal rules.

Using Exchange Admin Center (For Exchange 2016 & 2013)
Follow the mentioned steps to disable Journal Rule in Exchange Server 2013 & 2016:

1. Login into EAC and navigate to Compliance Management and then Journal Rules.
2. In the Journal Rule List at next column of Journal Rule clear the checkbox for disabling that particular rule.

Using Exchange Management Console (For Exchange 2010)
Follow the mentioned steps for disabling Journal Rule(s) in Exchange Server 2010:

1. Run EMC (Exchange Management Console) and go to Console Tree and select Organization Configuration and then select Hub Transport.
2. Now in Result Pane select Journal Rules tab and then select that rule which you want to disable.
3. Now in Action Pane, click on Disable Rule for disabling the select Journal rule.

Using PowerShell Commands (For Exchange 2010, 2013 & 2016)
Run below mentioned command to disable the journal rule:
Disable-JournalRule "JRuleAdmin"
Or you can also run below command for completely removing a journal rule:
Remove-JournalRule "JRuleAdmin"
Run below command to get the status of all journal rules:
Get-JournalRule
Run below command to get the status of any selected journal rules:
Get-JournalRule "JRuleAdmin" | Format-List
That’s it. Now you have successfully disabled the journal rule in Exchange Server.

Conclusion: Error - Email Copy Goes to Administrator Mailbox

In this article we covered the topic "Exchange 2013 Email Copy Goes to Administrator Mailbox" in which discussed about how to check the list of Journal Rules and how we can disable a particular Journal Rule with the help of EAC (Exchange Admin Center) as well as Powershell Commands.