Can one Exchange 2007 user have multiple distinct mailboxes?

Question

Under Exchange 2007, can a single Active Directory user have multiple unique mailboxes? When attempting to create a second mailbox for a given user, that user is no longer in the list of choose-able ones, since they already have a first mailbox.

I'm aware that a single mailbox can have multiple SMTP addresses associated with it, but the downfall I'm running into is when creating a new Distribution Group. It seems you can only associate users with a Distribution Group, but I want to send to a particular email address, which is often not the default reply for that user.

In our current non-Exchange IMAP setup, each email address is its own mailbox, and some users have several. Aliases (distribution groups, effectively) become straightforward, as messages can be delivered to a specific set of email addresses.

Am I doing something wrong, or just approaching this the wrong way? I could make a new Active Directory account & Mailbox combo for each address I wish to catch, but that seems like the wrong thing to do. I'm really new to Exchange, so any hints are much appreciated.

Solution 1

As you have found out, mailboxes in Exchange are tied to users in a one to one relationship, so you can't have multiple mailboxes per user account.

The way most people get round this is to create additional mailboxes(and users) and give the origional user full permissions to this mailbox, including being able to send as that user. You can also setup forwarding to the origional mailbox if you require.

Solution 2

You can setup secondary mailboxes as new mailboxes. You'll need to create new users to assign them to. You can then grant the user access to that mailbox so that the user has the right to send as that mailbox. You'll probably want to have the second mailbox redirect all inbound email to the default mailbox so that the user only has to check one mailbox.