Find Email Address in Active Directory

Did you ever try to create a new email address and receive an error message that it already exists?  Or did you ever have someone ask who is using an email address?  Here are some methods to find the email address:

1 – Active Directory Users and Computers Saved Queries (Server 2003 and up)

  • In Active Directory Users and Computers, right-click the Saved Queries container and click New->Query
  • Enter a name for the query then click the Define Query button
  • Click the Find drop-down menu and click Custom Search
  • Click the Advanced tab and enter the following query (Replace [email protected] with the email you want to find)
(proxyAddresses=SMTP:[email protected])
  • Click OK

LDAP proxyAddresses Query

 

2 – Exchange 2010/2007 Management Shell

To find a particular email address use the following command (Replace [email protected] with the email you want to find)

get-recipient | where {$_.emailaddresses -match “[email protected]”} | select name,emailaddresses

To find all email addresses for a particular domain use the following command (Replace domain.com with the domain you want to find)

get-recipient | where {$_.emailaddresses -match “domain.com”} | select name,emailaddresses

 

 

3 – Outlook

In Outlook, create a new message and type the email address into the to field.  Click the Check Names button or press Ctrl+K to resolve the email to the display name.  Note: this will not work if recipient is hidden from the GAL or Address List!!!