Create a Discovery Mailbox

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

Topic Last Modified: 2011-03-19

Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Setup creates a Discovery mailbox by default. Discovery mailboxes are available as target mailboxes for discovery searches in the Exchange Control Panel. You can create additional Discovery mailboxes as required. A Discovery mailbox can't be repurposed or converted to another type of mailbox. You can remove a Discovery mailbox using the same procedure used to remove other types of mailboxes.

Caution:
After a discovery search is completed, the Discovery mailbox used as a target mailbox for the search can potentially contain sensitive information. You should control access to Discovery mailboxes and ensure only authorized persons have access to them.

Looking for other management tasks related to Multi-Mailbox Search? Check out Managing Discovery.

Use the Shell to create a Discovery mailbox

You need to be assigned permissions before you can perform this procedure. To see what permissions you need, see the "Creating discovery mailboxes" entry in Messaging Policy and Compliance Permissions topic.

Note:
You can't use the EMC to create a Discovery mailbox.

This example creates the Discovery mailbox SearchResults using the New-Mailbox cmdlet with the Discovery switch.

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New-Mailbox SearchResults -Discovery -UserPrincipalName SearchResults@contoso.com

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

This example lists Discovery mailboxes in an Exchange organization.

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Get-Mailbox -Resultsize unlimited -Filter {RecipientTypeDetails -eq "DiscoveryMailbox"}

Other Tasks

After you create a Discovery mailbox, you may also want to: