Change the Languages for a User Mailbox

Applies to: Exchange Server 2010 SP3, Exchange Server 2010 SP2

Topic Last Modified: 2011-03-19

This topic explains how to use the Exchange Management Shell to change the languages for a user mailbox.

In Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, you can specify multiple languages for a mailbox, in order of preference. Several Exchange components display information to a mailbox user in the preferred language, if that language is supported. These components include quota messages, non-delivery reports (NDRs), the Microsoft Office Outlook Web App user interface, and Unified Messaging (UM) voice prompts.

Note:
For Exchange Server 2003, the language for quota messages and NDRs wasn't determined by the Exchange server. Instead, the language for these messages was determined by the language setting on the Outlook client computer used to view the NDR. To make sure that users who migrated from Exchange 2003 or earlier versions continue to receive these messages in their preferred language, set the language to match the language settings configured on their Outlook client computer.

Note:

For Exchange Server 2003, the language for quota messages and NDRs wasn't determined by the Exchange server. Instead, the language for these messages was determined by the language setting on the Outlook client computer used to view the NDR. To make sure that users who migrated from Exchange 2003 or earlier versions continue to receive these messages in their preferred language, set the language to match the language settings configured on their Outlook client computer.

The language for a mailbox can be set by using the Languages parameter of the Set-Mailbox cmdlet. An acceptable value for this parameter is a combination of an ISO 639 two-letter lowercase culture code associated with a language and an ISO 3166 two-letter uppercase subculture code associated with a country or region. To learn more about culture codes and to view a complete list of acceptable values, see CultureInfo Class in the MSDN Library.

Looking for other management tasks related to user mailboxes? Check out Managing User Mailboxes.

Use the Shell to change the languages for a user mailbox

You need to be assigned permissions before you can perform this procedure. To see what permissions you need, see the "User mailboxes users" entry in the Mailbox Permissions topic.

Note:
You can't use the EMC to change the languages for a user mailbox.

This example sets the language for the user Katarina Larsson to Finnish.

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Set-Mailbox -Identity "Katarina Larsson" -Languages "fi-FI"

Note:
This command overwrites any existing languages for the mailbox.

This example adds the language Turkish to the user mailbox Cigdem Akin without overwriting any existing languages.

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$Mailbox = Get-Mailbox -Identity "Cigdem Akin" $Mailbox.Languages += "tr-TR" Set-Mailbox -Identity "Cigdem Akin" $Mailbox.languages

For detailed syntax and parameter information, see Set-Mailbox.