How to Change a User’s Primary Email Address in Office 365 using PowerShell

How to Change a User’s Primary Email Address in Office 365 using PowerShell.

1. Run the PowerShell as administrator;

2. To run the scripts needed to change a user’s primary email address we must first set the script execution policy.

Get-ExecutionPolicy

3. The execution policy needs to be RemoteSigned. RemoteSigned allows only downloaded scripts signed by a trusted publisher to be run. If Get-ExecutionPolicy doesn’t return RemoteSigned, it must be changed by typing the following cmdlet and entering a “y” when prompted;

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned

4. Now Get-ExecutionPolicy returns RemoteSigned;

5. Next we need to provide Office 365 with administrative credentials to be able to make changes. We’re going to assign our credentials to the variable $cred;

$cred = Get-Credential

6. And PowerShell prompts for an Office 365 account with administrative permissions;

  7. After entering the credentials of an Office 365 administrator account and clicking OK, we need to open a connection to the Office 365 servers;

$Session = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri https://ps.outlook.com/powershell -Credential $cred -Authentication Basic -AllowRedirection

8. Once the connection is open we need to import the commands for the Exchange Server shell;

Import-PSSession $Session

9. The following command sets a user’s primary email address from the current address to the desired address without changing the username;

Set-Mailbox -identity <user@current.com> -WindowsEmailAddress <user@new.com>

10. The Office 365 online administrative interface should show the new email address as the primary;

11. Don’t forget close session;

Remove-PSSession $Session