Office 365: Forward email to an external address with Powershell

The Office 365 Admin Portal allows you to forward a users email to another mail contact easily. But it does not allow you to forward email for a user to an external address which has not been created in your tenant. However, you can do this with PowerShell, and here is how to do it using the Set-Mailbox cmdlet. For example:

Set-Mailbox -Identity testuser@tachytelic.net -DeliverToMailboxAndForward $true -ForwardingSMTPAddress testuser@somedomain.com

The DeliverToMailboxAndForward Parameter

If set to $true then DeliverToMailboxAndForward parameter of the Set-Mailxbox cmdlet will deliver mail to both the forwarding address and the original recipient. However, if it is set to $false, it will deliver mail only to the forwarding address.

Use PowerShell to forward email to an external address

1. Fill in the form below and the correct PowerShell code will be created for you.
2. Then choose if you would like the mail delivered only to the forwarding address, or to the forwarding address and the original mailbox.

E-Mail identity of mailbox to forward:

E-Mail address to forward mail to:

Which mailboxes should the mail be delivered to: The mailbox and forwarding address The forwarding address only

PowerShell to change Forwarding only

PowerShell to Connect to Office 365 and Change Forwarding

If you want to disable the forward in the future simply enter $null as the address that you would like to forward to and the forwarding will be cancelled.

Security Warning

After you make the changes above the administrators of your Office 365 Account may receive a warning message informing them this change has taken place:

I hope this post was helpful to you, if you want to learn how to remove a forwarding, please check out this post.