Office 365 Shared Mailbox Vs Inactive Mailbox: A Comprehensive Comparison Guide
Summary: In this article, you will explore the main difference between the two i.e. Shared mailbox vs Inactive mailbox. We will also explain how to create a shared mailbox and an inactive mailbox & how to add users to them. However, at the end of the article, you will find frequently asked questions that will help you to better understand.
Table of Contents,
- Introduction to Shared Mailbox
- How to Create a Shared Mailbox?
- Adding User to Shared Mailbox
- Introduction to Inactive Mailbox
- How to Create an Inactive Mailbox
- Difference between Shared Mailbox and Inactive Mailbox
- Way to Migrate Shared Mailbox Or Inactive Mailbox Data
- Conclusion
- Frequently Asked Queries
Shared Mailbox vs Inactive Mailbox: In this blog, there is a complete breakdown of how these two Microsoft 365 mailboxes different in use and access. Additionally, you learn about when to make use of each for your organization. If any employee leaves the company for some reason, the Office 365 mailbox of the employee has crucial mail. You can preserve the data by making that mailbox inactive or converting the mailbox into a shared mailbox.
The organization uses some more choices, such as deletion of the mailbox and handover of the mailbox to any reliable employee, chosen by the admin. Most organizations convert the mailbox to an inactive or shared mailbox. Since the mailbox contains personal information and is linked to Teams and OneDrive, therefore it is important to know the difference between Office 365 shared mailbox and inactive mailbox.
Introduction to Shared Mailbox
Within the organization, An Office 365 shared mailbox is used by a group of people or multiple users. It is used for sending, receiving, and sharing information, documents, data meeting links, and many more.
The data present in the shared mailbox is accessible by the members present in it because of shared collaboration. The user of the shared mailbox gets only 50GB of free space when the admin creates the mailbox. They are cost-saving solutions as multiple users can map into a shared mailbox therefore organizations don’t need to buy different licenses.
The user can start the services again after exceeding the limit using 2 methods/options, which are as follows.
- By taking the subscription package from Microsoft which helps in increasing the space of the shared mailbox.
- By converting the shared mailbox to a user mailbox in Office 365.
Example: A shared mailbox is used by the HR department of the company. The team passes the information to a group of people and connects using a common email address.
Let’s go through from the beginning how to create a shared mailbox to know a better comparison between a shared mailbox vs inactive mailbox.
How to Create a Shared Mailbox?
Let’s initialize the process of Creating a shared mailbox.
Steps
- Sign in with the Admin credential or Exchange admin account of Office365.
- From the admin panel go to Group then Shared mail.
- Click on Select and then add the mailbox.
- Enter the name of the shared mailbox.
- Click on the Add button
By following these steps you will able to create the shared mailbox, reflected within your mailbox of Office 365.
After the creation of the shared mailbox, the Admin needs to add users to the mailbox.
The admin further needs to follow the following steps for adding users to the shared mailbox
Adding User to Shared Mailbox
As the Admin already created the shared mailbox after clicking on the add button admin needs to follow these steps:
- Firstly Select the Add Members button.
- Select the people who you want to add to this shared mailbox.
- Select Add. and then Close.
After adding members, The admin needs to permit the user to use the shared mailbox.
Following permission given by the Admin helps users to pass the information which is as follows.
- Full Access – It allows the user to do any task without any further permission as assigned earlier.
- Send As – The user has permission to send emails using a shared mailbox address.
- Send on Behalf – The user has permission to send emails on behalf of the shared mailbox
After Knowing about the shared mailbox let’s move to the inactive mailbox for a better comparison of shared mailbox vs inactive mailbox.
Introduction to Inactive Mailbox
The employee working with your organization leaves the company. Maybe on a long leave due to sickness or any other issue so that you can remove their Office 365 account. The data present in the account will be available for 30 days. After this period the data is removed. If you want to recover this data you need to do it during this period only. If you apply any hold on the mailbox before deleting the Office 365 account the mailbox is converted into an Inactive state and called an inactive mailbox.
The types of hold applied to the mailbox to convert it into an Inactive state are:
- Microsoft 365 retention policies and labels.
- eDiscovery case.
- Litigation Hold.
- In-Place Hold
Let’s discuss each hold to clearly state the comparison of shared mailbox vs inactive Mailbox.
1. Microsoft 365 retention policies and labels
- With this, you can create a policy that states how long data should be retained & when deleted after the retention period.
- Retention policies are of two types Retain-only and another is Retain-and-delete
2. eDiscovery case
- The hold with the eDiscovery case preserves data related to the case and can’t deleted till the hold is there.
- Mostly used in legal investigations.
3. Litigation Hold
- Commonly used during the possibility of legal action and is similar to eDiscovery holds.
- It preserves all mailbox data until you remove it.
4. In-Place Hold
- Earlier used in the Exchange Admin Center(EAC)
- Allows you to hold the mailbox
- However, the Office now uses retention policies rather than In-Place Holds.
Firstly you need to apply for a hold, confirm the hold & remove the Microsoft account so that the data remains safe. You can recover the account within 30 days. If you apply multiple holds on the same data, therefore data is retained for the longest period.
How to Create an Inactive Mailbox
If you want to create an inactive mailbox here is the process you need to follow.
- Log in to the Microsoft 365 website.
- Open the mailbox you want to make Inactive.
- Place it on hold by applying a retention policy.
- Then wait to apply retention settings and add a period.
- Crosscheck whether the hold was applied successfully or not.
Now delete the mailbox or account from the Microsoft admin center after making sure that the hold is applied successfully which is a crucial step.
Hope now you get some sort of idea about inactive mailbox. How to create it and also the types of hold useful in comparison of shared mailbox Vs inactive mailbox.
Read More: How to Enable Online Archive Office 365 Mailbox? Step-By-Step
Difference between Shared Mailbox and Inactive Mailbox
With the help of this table, you can easily understand the core difference between the two.
| Features | Shared Mailbox | Inactive Mailbox |
|---|---|---|
|
Used for collaboration with group users. | Used to retain the data of the employee who leaves the organization. |
|
Multiple users can access the mailbox. | Only the authorized user can access the mailbox |
|
In the shared mailbox, you can receive new emails | In the inactive mailbox, no such new email came. |
|
No additional license is required, needs only the existing one. | At least an e2 license is required to add a hold on an inactive mailbox |
|
Not required. | The User account will be removed. |
|
Data retention depends on the organizational need, not automatically deleted | Data retention depends on the retention policies applied to it. |
|
Not designed for compliance purposes | Specifically designed for compliance purposes |
Additionally, you can make a comparison of shared mailbox vs inactive mailbox with this table easily.
Way to Migrate Shared Mailbox Or Inactive Mailbox Data
Moreover, If You want to change the shared mailbox to the user mailbox or the Inactive Mailbox to the normal mailbox for further use, you need to transfer the data in both scenarios. You are not able to directly migrate the shared mailbox to the user mailbox, so you need to use a professional migration tool as Microsoft does not provide any specific tools for this migration. My personal favorite is Migrator Wizard Office 365 Migration Tool as working with this tool is so effective.
Read More: How to Transfer Office 365 Mailbox to Another Account? Best Way Explained
Conclusion
This article suits the audience who wants to learn about the comparison between shared mailboxes vs inactive mailboxes. In this article, you will learn how shared and inactive mailboxes are created, how to add members to a shared mailbox, and the simple difference between them. Moreover, this article also talks about the different holds that apply to inactive mailboxes. Both mailboxes i.e. shared mailbox & inactive mailbox have their use. It depends on the requirements of the user and what the user wants to choose.
Frequently Asked Queries
Que) Which Office 365 plan is required for a Shared Mailbox?
Ans) To use Shared Mailbox, you can have any Office 365 plan that includes Exchange Online.
Que) Does the data of Inactive Mailbox ever expire?
Ans) No, as long as litigation hold or in-place hold is enabled, the data in the Inactive Mailbox does not expire and remains preserved.
Que) What is the difference between a Shared Mailbox and a User Mailbox?
Ans) Shared Mailbox is for multiple users however User Mailbox is for an individual. Additionally, you can save Login credentials in the User Mailbox but not in the Shared Mailbox.