Exchange Online: Activate automatic e-mail forwarding

If users complain that emails cannot be forwarded automatically, Exchange Online can be configured accordingly. Exchange Online prevents the automatic forwarding of emails via an Outlook rule; users who have created a corresponding rule receive the following undeliverable message from Exchange Online:

Remote server returned '550 5.7.520 Access denied, Your organization does not allow external forwarding. Please contact your administrator for further assistance. AS(7555)'

The automatic forwarding of emails represents a security and data protection risk, so the feature should only be activated if it is absolutely necessary for users. With automatic forwarding, sensitive and confidential information or malicious emails may be forwarded. Under no circumstances should automatic forwarding be activated for all users.

A corresponding exception can be created in the Microsoft Defender Portal under the following link:

• https://security.microsoft.com

The item "Threat guidelines" can be found under "Guidelines and rules":

A new policy can be created under "Antispam":

The new guideline will be created as an "outbound" guideline:

The directive should be given a meaningful name:

In the next step, corresponding users or groups can be added:

The setting "On - forwarding is activated" must then be selected under "Forwarding rules" in the policy settings:

The new policy can now be saved:

The previously added users can now use Outlook rules for forwarding mails. The rules do not need to be created again.