Add an Exchange Mailbox for an Existing Active Directory User

If you have a user in Active Directory that does not have an email address or Exchange Mailbox, you need to do the following to set them up.

These instructions are valid for Exchange 2007 or 2010. Ensure you are a member of the Exchange Recipient Administrators group within Active Directory. If you cannot set this up yourself, ask your network administrator to do this.

If you have a 64-bit version of Windows Vista or 7, you can have the Exchange Management Console (EMC) installed directly on your PC. How to do this is not covered in this post however. If you don't already have the EMC on your PC, to complete the following steps you will need to log onto one of your Exchange servers or another PC or server that has the EMC installed.

Once logged onto a PC or server that has the EMC installed:

1. Go to Start | All Programs | Microsoft Exchange | Exchange Management Console 
2. Once that opens, navigate to Recipient Configuration | Mailbox
3. Then on the right click New Mailbox
4. Ensure User Mailbox is selected and click Next
5. Select Existing User and click the Add button
6. Find the new user, select them and click OK
7. Click Next
8. Tick Specify the mailbox… (for Exchange 2010) or Mailbox Database (for Exchange 2007) and click Browse  
9. Select the database (there may only be one if you have a small Exchange environment) and click OK  
10. Click Next 
11. At the final page, click New to proceed with the mailbox creation

Your user should now have a new mailbox. Well done!