An administrator wanted to know how to add additional SMTP addresses to an Exchange 2003 mailbox:

"A user wants to add another email address using his first name only but still receive mail using the original address. How do I set this up?"

Administrators can add additional SMTP addresses to an Exchange mailbox and the mailbox will receive all mail for the addresses. Sent mail will always use the default address. If you need to send from multiple addresses you'll need to use other methods to deliver the mail to one Inbox and give Send as rights to the other addresses.

To add additional SMTP address in Exchange 2003, locate the user account in Active Directory Users and Computers; in Exchange 2007 or Exchange 2010, open the user account in Exchange System Console (Recipient Configuration > Mailbox).

Right click on the user account and choose Properties then select the Email Address tab. Click the New button and add as many addresses as you like. The default STMP address is bolded, with SMTP in capital letters. If you want to use a different address as the default, select it and press the Set as Default or Set as Reply button.

Deselect Automatically Update email address based on policy, otherwise the policy with remove your changes.

Using a Recipient Policy

If you need to add additional addresses to several user accounts, you should consider creating a new recipient policy or editing the current policy.

Look for the recipient policies in the Exchange System Manager, under the Recipients, Recipient Policies container (Exchange 2000/2003) or Organizational configuration, Hub transport, Email Address Policies (Exchange 2007 & Exchange 2010).

To add new addresses for all users, change the Default policy or create a new one (Right click, New) and apply it to specific users using filter rules.

Address formats

You would enter %g@domain.com for first name only, %m@domain.com to use the username for the alias or %g.%s@domain.com for firstname.lastname format.

To restrict the address to a specific number of letters, you can add a number following the replacement string. For example, %1s%7g@domain.com would result in dporemsk@domain.com, or in the case of my daughter's college, %g6&s1%i@college.edu, for poremsdr@college.edu address format.

Available options are:

To control the number of characters used, you can use a number:

Use %rxy to replace all subsequent characters x with character y in username. (If x = y, the character will be deleted. )

For example, to change the user name "DianeR.Poremsky", to "DianeR_Poremsky", use this string:  %g%r._%s@domain.com