Recipient Filtering in Exchange 2016 on Edge Transport Server

Nowadays, many users are working on Exchange Server and mainly they have two types of contacts or recipient, one is the internal recipient and another is the external recipient or external contacts. Therefore, it is necessary to perform recipient filtering in Exchange 2016. When its come to recipient filtering in Exchange Server, it is mainly done at an organization level. However, in an organization, everyone has lots of recipient in their Exchange 2016 and there are many situations such as to prevent spamming and to block some users from sending emails which results in recipient filtering. Now, an antispam feature in Exchange Server 2016 is what we called Recipient filtering. It mainly relies on RCPT to SMTP header. This type of filtering is mainly performed Recipient Filter agent. Most of the users do not have knowledge about recipient filtering in Exchange. Therefore, in this, we have discussed all the required knowledge about it and how exactly recipient filtering in Exchange 2016 on Edge Transport Server can be performed.

“I am an admin in my organization and I want to filter some of the recipient of my regular mail group so that I can share all the confidential information with employees. Moreover, I am managing Exchange 2016. Therefore, I want to have complete knowledge about recipient filtering option in Exchange 2016 on Edge Transport Server.”

“As I am using Exchange 2016 in my office and came to know about the recipient filter option in it on Edge Transport Server. I think it is a good option to overcome spamming done by the hackers. Therefore, to protect the data of our organization, I want to use this option, but do not know how exactly it works. Can anyone explain me how I can filter or even block some email addresses.“

Need of Recipient Filtering in Exchange

Due to various queries asked by the users and the problems faced by the users, in this segment of the article, we have tried to figure out what exactly the reason behind antispam feature in Exchange.

1. If a user wants to avoid the acceptance of some emails that are spams or wants to block particular recipient user, then there is requirement of of recipient filtering
2. If someone leaves the organization, then a user can prevent delivery of a message to that particular address.
3. To have an internal or organizational level exchange of information, one can use this option.

Point to Remember Before You Start

• Approximate time in which each process is completed is less than 5 minutes.
• A user must have administration permission to perform this Antispam procedure.
• The only way to perform recipient filtering process is using PowerShell in Exchange Management Shell.
• Recipient filter agent can not be configured to block any recipients, however, it is enabled when antispam agents installed. Moreover, recipient filtering is done on a Mailbox Server to detect blocked recipient in a message, which contains valid recipient in it.
• Set-AcceptedDomian for Address Book, in an accepted domain, enable or disable recipient filtering for receivers. By default, it is done by authoritative domain. Moreover, to view AddressBookEnabled status in an accepted domain, execute the command: Get-AcceptedDomain | Format-List Name,AddressBookEnabled

Method of Recipient Filtering in Exchange 2016 on Edge Transport Server

One can perform recipient filtering in Exchange 2016 through Powershell commands only. There are different commands to perform each operation like filtering or blocking of external or internal users.

#1 Enable or Disable Recipient Filtering using Exchange Management Shell

To enable or disable recipient filtering there are different commands that are mentioned below:
To disable recipient filtering, execute the command:

For enabling recipient filtering, run the command:

To disable recipient filtering after disabling recipient filtering, execute the command:

To confirm that enabling or disabling of recipient filtering is performed successfully, run the command:

#2 For External Connections Enable or Disable Recipient Filtering in Exchange Management Shell

Now, if for external connections, you want to disable recipient filtering, execute the following command:

Now, if for external connections, you want to enable recipient filtering, execute the following command:

To confirm, enabling or disabling for recipient filtering for external connection, run the following command:

#3 For Internal Connections Enable or Disable Recipient Filtering in Exchange Management Shell

If user wants to perform recipient filtering for internal connection, run the following command:

To enable recipient filtering execute:

To disable recipient filtering execute the command:

To confirm, run the following command:

#4 Enable or Disable Recipient Block List in Exchange Management Shell

If a user wants to block the recipient, then enable recipient block list by executing the command:

Disable Recipient Block List, execute the command:

To check, execute the following command:

#5 To configure the Recipient Block List use Exchange Management Shell

If you want to replace the existing values, execute the command:

If you want to add or delete user without modifying other users entries:

To confirm it is done successfully, execute the command:

#6 Enable or Disable Recipient Lookup Using Exchange Management Shell

Enable Recipient Lookup by running the command:

Disable Recipient Lookup by executing:

To confirm, execute the command:

Conclusion

Recipient Filtering in Exchange 2016 is the utility that most users are asking on the web like how to perform recipient filtering in Exchange 2016 on Edge Transport Server. Therefore, after understanding the requirement of users to perform an antispam operation on their mailboxes, we have discussed all the important PowerShell commands using Exchange Management Shell that can be used by the users such as for recipient block list and filtering recipient for external connections. One can use any of them according to their requirement.