New Feature - Site Mailboxes in SharePoint Online
One of the most requested features in SharePoint Online in Office 365 is mail-enabled document libraries.
In the next major update to Office 365 - currently in Preview and called "Office 365 Preview" - we will bring you what is called Site Mailboxes.
A Site Mailbox is a shared inbox in Exchange Online that all the members of a SharePoint Online site can access. It is implemented in SharePoint Online Preview as what is known as an app . An app is best described as a solution that carries a light footprint and uses standards-based technologies such as HTML5, JavaScript, and OAuth.
The Site Mailbox is accessible from the site in which it is created. It allow access to users who are individually listed in the Owners and Members groups of the site - security groups or distribution lists are not supported by Site Mailboxes. The email address of the site mailbox will be generated automatically from the name of the site.
Site mailboxes are surfaced in Outlook 2013 and give you easy access to the emails and documents for the projects you care about. Site Mailboxes are listed in the Folder Explorer in Outlook 2013 (the rich client), letting you file emails or documents into the shared project space simply by dragging the email, document, or attachment into the site mailbox.
You will not see your site mailboxes when you sign into your mailbox with Outlook Web App. However, if you are in the default owners or members lists of the site you can use the Site Mailbox app to see an OWA web part that displays the messages in that site mailbox.
To set up a Site Mailbox for at site
1. Log into Office 365 Preview, click "Sites" in the top navigation bar and then click "new site"
2. Type the name of your new site, e.g TheMailHeavySite...
3. Click “Keep email in context” to install a brand new app called “Site Mailbox”...
4, Click the "Add" button to install the app...
5. Click the newly installed "Site Mailbox" app to create the shared mailbox and make it accessible on your site...
The mailbox is being setup...
6. Select your prefered language and time zone...
The mailbox is ready, complete with a mail listing the email address of the mailbox - in this example TheMailHeavySite@modernoffice.onmicrosoft.com since my trial domain is modernoffice.onmicrosoft.com. People can now send mail to the site using that email address.
Back on the site home page you and other site members can access the newly created mailbox using the link created under the header "Recent" or by clicking "Keep email in contect"
If you open Outlook 2013 you will see the Site Mailbox(es) you are a member of listed in the lower left corner of the Folder Explorer in Outlook. Under each Site Mailbox a subfolder called "Documents" exists. You can drag attachments from any email to these "Documents" subfolders and they are automatically uploaded to the corresponding document library "Documents" in the SharePoint Online site to which the Site Mailbox is related.
To learn much more about Site Mailboxes please see the newly published blog post by the Exchange Team "Site Mailboxes in the new Office".
See also
Comments
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
thank youAnonymous
March 22, 2013
Thanks for sharing this new feature with us. Do you know if it's possible to personalize the email address of a SharePoint site, and How ? For exemple : Collaboratif@modernoffice.onmicrosoft.com in stead of TheMailHeavySite@.. ?Anonymous
May 29, 2013
Have you experienced subfolders in the site mailbox, not being accessible in the Outlook rich-client?Anonymous
January 30, 2014
Thao, Use below command to provision a site mailbox: $mailbox = New-SiteMailbox -SharePointUrl $url -Name "Address" -DisplayName "Display Name"Anonymous
July 02, 2015
hopefully we will still see email enabled libraries as well as the site mailbox, not really a replacement for email enabled libraries.Anonymous
August 22, 2015
Great article. Thanks for the info. Does anyone know where I can find a blank "how to email document " to fill out?Anonymous
August 24, 2015
Hey jeannie, I was able to "email document form " from this link http://goo.gl/yoGwr2. This site also Download, edit, print, save, sign, email or even fax your document.Anonymous
February 20, 2016
Not that I'm counting but I just realized one of my blog posts actually is closing in on 100k viewsAnonymous
April 08, 2016
Good day just facing a bit of problem just started using Sharepoint and trying to create the said "Mailbox" although when i create one it always add the prefix SMO, will I have any issues if I choose to remove the prefix and how can I remove the prefix. Any form of information is greatly appreciated thanks.Anonymous
August 30, 2017
Update:-- "Site Mailboxes" have been deprecated in O365/SPO. Announced early 2017, https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Prepare-for-using-site-mailboxes-in-Office-365-6381DAA5-3D98-4629-972D-D19E1DC48C1B.-- Need to use "Group Mailboxes" now...