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Mailbox SOA

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Michael Mardahl edited this page Aug 19, 2026 · 1 revision

Mailbox SOA

Convert to cloud

Select mailboxes and press C. The tool runs:

Set-Mailbox -Identity <user> -IsExchangeCloudManaged $true

What changes:

  • Exchange attributes become editable in Exchange Online PowerShell and the Exchange admin center.
  • The next sync cycle stops pushing Exchange attribute values from AD for that mailbox.
  • Identity attributes such as display name, department, and title still come from AD.

What does not change:

  • The user account stays synced from AD. You moved only the Exchange attributes, not the whole object.
  • The mailbox stays in Exchange Online.

A JSON backup of the mailbox attributes is written to SOA-Backups\ before the change.

Roll back to on-premises

Select mailboxes and press O. The tool sets IsExchangeCloudManaged to $false.

The next sync cycle overwrites the cloud Exchange attributes with the AD values. If you made changes in the cloud that you want to keep, record them first or restore them to AD before you roll back.

Timing rule

After you update mailbox attributes on-premises with Set-RemoteMailbox, wait for the usual sync cycle plus 24 hours before converting that mailbox to cloud-managed. Microsoft recommends this to let the sync client settle.

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