Topic Last Modified: 2011-04-28

Mail contacts are mail-enabled Active Directory objects that contain information about people or organizations that exist outside your Exchange organization. To learn more about mail contacts, see Understanding Recipients.

When you select Mail Contact under Recipient Configuration, the result pane displays a list of all mail-enabled contacts and users in your Exchange organization.

Note:
You can also use the Exchange Management Shell to manage all aspects of mail contacts. For more information, see Recipient Cmdlets.

To focus on a set of items in the result pane that have specific attributes, you can use a variety of expressions to filter the list. For more information about filters, see Filter the Result Pane.

When you select a mail contact in the result pane, the following actions are available either by right-clicking the contact name or by using the action pane.

Note:
If you select multiple recipients in the result pane, the following actions will be available only if your selection contains a single recipient type. If you don't see any actions available, it is an indication that your selection contains both mail contacts and mail users.
Disable

Click Disable to remove all Exchange attributes from the Active Directory contact. The contact will no longer be mail-enabled, but it will remain in Active Directory.

For more information, see Disable E-Mail for a Mail Contact.

Remove

Click Remove to remove the contact from Active Directory.

Important:
When you remove a mail contact, not only is the Exchange-related configuration deleted, but the associated contact in Active Directory is deleted as well.

For more information, see Remove a Mail Contact.

Send Mail

Click Send Mail to send an e-mail message to recipients by using the Exchange Management Console. Select the recipient or multiple recipients in the result pane, and then click Send Mail in the action pane. You must configure an e-mail account on the computer from which you are sending mail.

Note:
You can only send mail to multiple selected recipients if they are all of the same recipient type.

You can send mail to the following recipient types:

  • User Mailboxes

  • Mail Contacts

  • Mail Users

  • Dynamic Distribution Groups

  • Distribution Groups

You cannot send mail to resource mailboxes.

Properties

Click Properties to view or change the settings for the selected mail contact.

Note:
This action is not displayed if more than one mail contact is selected in the result pane.

For more information, see Configure Mail Contact Properties.

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