Unable to Remove Additional Exchange Mailboxes Print

You may have added extra Exchange mailboxes to your account, but now you can't remove them in Outlook because they don’t appear in the account settings or additional mailbox list.

Right-clicking the mailbox and selecting Close <mailbox> returns the following error:

"This group of folders is associated with an email account. To remove the account, click the File tab, then click Account Settings under the Info tab. Select the email account, then click Remove."

Since the mailbox is not listed there, how can you remove it?

Why can’t it be removed?

A quick Outlook restart can help process any pending changes, but in most cases this won’t resolve the issue.

This commonly occurs in Outlook 2007 SP3, Outlook 2010, or Outlook 2013 connected to Exchange Server 2010 SP1 or later, where the Exchange admin has granted you Full Access permissions.

In such cases, the additional mailbox is automatically added via Exchange's Auto-Mapping feature.

Auto-mapped mailboxes do not appear in the list of manually added mailboxes.

Removing an Auto-Mapped Mailbox

As mentioned, Outlook does not allow you to manually remove an auto-mapped mailbox.

You’ll need to ask your Exchange administrator to remove the Auto-Mapping attribute by using the following PowerShell command:

Add-MailboxPermission -Identity <shared mailbox alias> -User <your alias> -AccessRights FullAccess -InheritanceType All -Automapping $false

Once this attribute is removed, the mailbox will automatically disappear after restarting Outlook.

Notes for the Exchange Administrator

• This command requires Exchange 2010 SP2 or later.
• It removes the Full Access delegate from the mailbox’s msExchDelegateListLink property.
• Additional mailboxes are propagated through the AlternateMailbox attribute via AutoDiscover.
• More info: Disable Outlook Auto-Mapping for Full Access Mailboxes.

Manually Re-Adding the Mailbox

If you want to re-add the mailbox, you can do so manually without requesting help from your Exchange administrator:

• Outlook 2007: Tools → Account Settings → Double-click your Exchange account → More Settings → Advanced tab → Add…
• Outlook 2010/2013: File → Account Settings → Double-click your Exchange account → More Settings → Advanced tab → Add…