Manage mail flow rules in Exchange Online
By AshaIyengar21
Archived: 2026-04-05 16:36:59 UTC
In cloud-based organizations, you can use Exchange mail flow rules (also known as transport rules) to look for
specific conditions on messages that pass through your organization and take action on them.
This article shows you how to create, copy, adjust the order, enable or disable, delete, import or export rules, and
monitor rule usage.
Tip
To ensure that your rules work the way you expect, ensure that you thoroughly test each rule and interactions
between rules.
What do you need to know before you begin?
Estimated time to complete each procedure: 5 minutes.
For information about how to access the Exchange admin center (EAC), see Exchange admin center in
Exchange Online. To connect to Exchange Online PowerShell, see Connect to Exchange Online
PowerShell.
You need to be assigned permissions before you can perform these procedures. To see what permissions
you need, see the "Mail flow" entry in Feature permissions in Exchange Online.
For information about keyboard shortcuts that may apply to the procedures in this article, see Keyboard
shortcuts for the Exchange admin center.
Tip
Having problems? Ask for help in the Exchange Online forum at Exchange Online.
Create a mail flow rule
You can create a mail flow rule in the EAC or in PowerShell. In the EAC, you can also create a mail flow rule by
copying an existing rule.
Note
After you create or copy a mail flow rule, it might take 30 minutes or more for the new rule to be applied to
emails.
Use the EAC to create a mail flow rule
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/security-and-compliance/mail-flow-rules/manage-mail-flow-rules
Page 1 of 10

The EAC allows you to create mail flow rules by selecting a template or starting from scratch.
1. In the new EAC at https://admin.exchange.microsoft.com, go to Mail flow > Rules. Or, to go directly to
the Rules page, use https://admin.exchange.microsoft.com/#/transportrules.
2. On the Rules page, create the rule by using one of the following options:
The new rule wizard opens.
3. On the Set rule conditions page, enter a unique name for the rule in the Name box, and then select the
conditions, exceptions, and actions for the rule:
Apply this rule if...: Select a condition from the list.
Do the following...: Select an action from the list.
Except if...: Use this setting to specify any exceptions to the rule. The available exceptions are
identical to the available conditions.
When you're finished on the Set rule conditions page, select Next.
4. On the Set rule settings page, configure the following settings:
Rule mode: Select one of the following values:
Enforce: Turn on the rule and start processing messages immediately. All actions on the rule
are taken.
Test with Policy Tips: Turn on the rule, and any Policy Tip actions ( Notify the sender with
a Policy Tip) are sent, but no actions related to message delivery are taken.
Test without Policy Tips: Only the Generate incident report action is enforced. No actions
related to message delivery are taken.
Severity: Select a severity level for this rule. Rule matches are grouped by severity level in activity
reports. Severity level is just a filter to make the reports easier to use. The severity level has no
impact on the priority that the rule is processed in.
Not specified
Low
Medium
High
Not audit: Rule matches don't appear in rule reports.
Activate this rule on and Deactivate this rule on: Use these settings to turn the rule on and off for
a specific time period. If you create the rule before Activate this rule on date, the rule is enabled
but it isn't processed. After the Deactivate this rule on date, the rule remains enabled but it isn't
processed.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/security-and-compliance/mail-flow-rules/manage-mail-flow-rules
Page 2 of 10

Stop processing more rules: Use this setting to prevent additional rules from being applied to the
message after this rule. If a message is processed by this rule, no subsequent rules are processed for
that message.
Defer the message if rule processing doesn't complete: Specify how the message should be
handled if rule processing can't finish. By default, the rule is ignored and processing of the message
by other rules continues. If you select this option, the message is resubmitted for processing.
Match sender address in message: Specify which email address is evaluated by conditions or
exceptions that inspect the sender's email address:
Header: Only the message headers are examined.
Envelope: Only the SMTP message envelope is examined.
Header or envelope: Both the message headers and SMTP message envelope are examined.
Comments: Add an optional comment to the rule.
When you're finished on the Set rule settings page, select Next.
5. On the Review and finish page, verify the settings. Select Back or use the Edit rule conditions or Edit
rule settings links to modify the settings.
When you're finished on the Review and finish page, select Finish.
6. On the confirmation page, select Done.
Use Exchange Online PowerShell to create a mail flow rule
The following example creates a new mail flow rule that prepends the text External message to Sales DG: to
the Subject line of external messages that are sent to the Sales Department distribution group:
New-TransportRule -Name "Mark messages from the Internet to Sales DG" -FromScope NotInOrganization -SentTo "Sal
For detailed syntax and parameter information, see New-TransportRule.
Note
The parameters and action used in the previous example are for illustration only. Review all the available mail
flow rule conditions and actions to determine which ones meet your requirements.
Use the EAC to copy a mail flow rule
1. In the new EAC at https://admin.exchange.microsoft.com, go to Mail flow > Rules. Or, to go directly to
the Rules page, use https://admin.exchange.microsoft.com/#/transportrules.
2. On the Rules page, select the rule by selecting the radio button that appears next to the Status value, and
then select the Duplicate action that appears.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/security-and-compliance/mail-flow-rules/manage-mail-flow-rules
Page 3 of 10

3. In the Make a copy of "<Rule Name>" flyout that opens, the values on the Conditions and Settings tabs
are filled in with the settings of the copied rule. The default name is Copy of <Rule Name>. You can
change any of the rule settings. The available settings are identical to creating a new rule as explained in
the Use the EAC to create a mail flow rule section.
4. When you finished editing the settings of the rule, select Make copy at the bottom of the flyout.
5. In the confirmation flyout that opens, select Duplicate.
6. In the success flyout that opens, select Close X.
How do you know that you've successfully created a mail flow rule?
To verify that you've successfully created a mail flow rule, do either of the following steps:
On the Rules page in the EAC at https://admin.exchange.microsoft.com/#/transportrules, verify that the
mail flow rule you created or copied is listed.
In Exchange Online PowerShell, replace <New Rule Name> with the name of the rule that you created or
copied and run the following command:
Get-TransportRule -Identity "<New Rule Name>""
View or modify a mail flow rule
Note
After you modify a mail flow rule, it might take 30 minutes or more for the updated rule to be applied to emails.
Use the EAC to view or modify a mail flow rule
1. In the new EAC at https://admin.exchange.microsoft.com, go to Mail flow > Rules. Or, to go directly to
the Rules page, use https://admin.exchange.microsoft.com/#/transportrules.
2. On the Rules page, select a rule from the list by clicking anywhere in the row other than the round
checkbox next to the name.
3. In the details flyout that opens you can see the existing settings and make changes by selecting Edit rule
conditions and Edit rule settings at the top of the flyout. The available settings are identical to creating a
new rule as explained in the Use the EAC to create a mail flow rule section.
Use Exchange Online PowerShell to view or modify a mail flow rule
The following example returns a summary list of all mail flow rules in the organization:
Get-TransportRule
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/security-and-compliance/mail-flow-rules/manage-mail-flow-rules
Page 4 of 10

To view the detailed information about a specific mail flow rule, provide the unique identifier for the rule (for
example, Name, DistinguishedName, or GUID). It's helpful to send the output to the Format-List cmdlet to
format the properties.
The following example returns all the properties of the specified mail flow rule:
Get-TransportRule -Identity "Sender is a member of marketing" | Format-List
The following example adds an exception to the existing rule named "Sender is a member of marketing" so that it
doesn't apply to messages sent by the user Kelly Rollin:
Set-TransportRule -Identity "Sender is a member of marketing" -ExceptIfFrom "Kelly Rollin"
For detailed syntax and parameter information, see Set-TransportRule.
How do you know that you've successfully modified a mail flow rule?
To verify that you've successfully modified a mail flow rule, do either of the following steps:
On the Rules page in the EAC at https://admin.exchange.microsoft.com/#/transportrules, select the rule
that you modified by clicking anywhere in the row other than the radio button next to the Status value. In
the details flyout that opens, confirm the settings.
In Exchange Online PowerShell, replace <Rule Name> with the name of the rule that you modified and run
the following command:
Get-TransportRule -Identity "<Rule Name>" | Format-List Name,ExceptIfFrom
Set the priority of a mail flow rule
On the Rules page in the EAC, mail flow rules are shown in the order that they're processed. The rule at the top of
the list has the Priority value 0 and is processed first.
Use the EAC to set the priority of a rule
1. In the EAC at https://admin.exchange.microsoft.com, go to Mail flow > Rules. Or, to go directly to the
Rules page, use https://admin.exchange.microsoft.com/#/transportrules.
2. On the Rules page, select a rule by selecting the radio button next to the Status value, and then select the
Move up or Move down actions to move the rule up or down the list.
Use Exchange Online PowerShell to set the priority of a rule
The following example sets the priority of the specified mail flow rule to 2:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/security-and-compliance/mail-flow-rules/manage-mail-flow-rules
Page 5 of 10

Set-TransportRule -Identity "Sender is a member of Marketing" -Priority "2"
For detailed syntax and parameter information, see Set-TransportRule.
How do you know that you've successfully set the priority of a mail flow rule
To verify that you've successfully set the priority of a mail flow rule, do either of the following steps:
On the Rules page in the EAC at https://admin.exchange.microsoft.com/#/transportrules, verify the order
of the rules.
In Exchange Online PowerShell, run the following command:
Get-TransportRule | Format-List Name,Priority
Enable or disable a mail flow rule
By default, the status of mail flow rule is disabled when you create them using EAC. This is done so that you can
review the rule one more time before finally enabling it. You can enable the rule after the rule creation is
complete.
Use the EAC to enable or disable a mail flow rule
1. In the EAC at https://admin.exchange.microsoft.com, go to Mail flow > Rules. Or, to go directly to the
Rules page, use https://admin.exchange.microsoft.com/#/transportrules.
2. On the Rules page, select the rule by clicking anywhere in the row other than the radio button next to the
name. The Status value of the rule is Enabled or Disabled.
3. In the details flyout that opens, use the toggle in the Enable or disable rule section near the top of the
flyout to enable or disable the rule.
Use Exchange Online PowerShell to enable or disable a mail flow rule
The following example disables the specified mail flow rule:
Disable-TransportRule -Identity "Sender is a member of marketing"
The following example enables the specified mail flow rule:
Enable-TransportRule -Identity "Sender is a member of marketing"
For detailed syntax and parameter information, see Disable-TransportRule and Enable-TransportRule.
How do you know you've successfully enabled or disabled a mail flow rule?
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/security-and-compliance/mail-flow-rules/manage-mail-flow-rules
Page 6 of 10

To verify that you've successfully enabled or disabled a mail flow rule, do either of the following steps:
On the Rules page in the EAC at https://admin.exchange.microsoft.com/#/transportrules, verify the value
in the Status column.
In Exchange Online PowerShell, run the following command to return a list of all rules in your
organization along with their status values:
Get-TransportRule | Format-Table Name,State
Remove a mail flow rule
Use the EAC to remove a mail flow rule
1. In the EAC at https://admin.exchange.microsoft.com, go to Mail flow > Rules. Or, to go directly to the
Rules page, use https://admin.exchange.microsoft.com/#/transportrules.
2. On the Rules page, select the rule by selecting the radio button next to the Status value, and then select the
Delete action that appears.
3. In the confirmation flyout that opens, select Confirm.
Use Exchange Online PowerShell to remove a mail flow rule
The following example removes the specified mail flow rule:
Remove-TransportRule -Identity "Sender is a member of marketing"
For detailed syntax and parameter information, see Remove-TransportRule.
How do you know that you've successfully removed a mail flow rule?
To verify that you've successfully removed the mail flow rule, do either of the following steps:
On the Rules page of the EAC at https://admin.exchange.microsoft.com/#/transportrules, verify that the
rule you removed is no longer listed.
In Exchange Online PowerShell, run the following command and verify that the rule you removed is no
longer listed:
Get-TransportRule
Monitor rule usage
You can check the number of times each rule is matched by using Exchange Transport Rule report in the EAC.
For a rule to be included in the report, a rule can't have the Severity value Not audit (all other values are OK).
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/security-and-compliance/mail-flow-rules/manage-mail-flow-rules
Page 7 of 10

You can view the report online, or download report data to a .csv file.
Note
While most data is in the report within 24 hours, some data may take as long as 5 days to appear.
1. In the EAC at https://admin.exchange.microsoft.com, go to Reports > Mail flow. Or, to go directly to the
Mail flow reports page, use https://admin.exchange.microsoft.com/#/reports/mailflowreportsmain.
2. On the Mail flow reports page, find and select Exchange Transport Rule report.
For details about the report, see Exchange transport rule report in the new Exchange admin center in Exchange
Online.
Import or export a mail flow rule collection in Exchange Online
Use the Export-TransportRuleCollection cmdlet in Exchange Online PowerShell to export all of the mail flow
rules in the organization to an XML file. For more information, see Export-TransportRuleCollection.
The Import-TransportRuleCollection cmdlet will be deprecated from Exchange Online PowerShell. To
manually import a mail flow rules collection XML file in Exchange Online PowerShell, do the following steps:
1. Back up all existing mail flow rules using the Export-TransportRuleCollection cmdlet (the next step
removes all existing mail flow rules, just like the Import-TransportRuleCollection cmdlet did). For
example:
$file = Export-TransportRuleCollection
[System.IO.File]::WriteAllBytes('C:\MailFlowRuleCollections\BackupRuleCollection.xml', $file.FileData)
2. Remove all existing mail flow rules in the organization by running the following command:
Get-TransportRule | foreach {Remove-TransportRule $_.Guid -Confirm:$false}
3. Copy the following text into Notepad:
if ((Get-TransportRule).Count -ne 0)
{
 Write-Host "Please remove your current mail flow rules first."
 return
}
[xml]$xml = Get-Content "C:\MailFlowRuleCollections\RuleCollectionToImport.xml"
$rulesToImport = $xml.SelectNodes("//rules/rule")
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/security-and-compliance/mail-flow-rules/manage-mail-flow-rules
Page 8 of 10

if ($rulesToImport.Count -eq 0)
{
 Write-Host "There are no mail flow rules to be imported."
 return
}
Write-Host "Importing $($rulesToImport.Count) mail flow rules."
$index = 0
foreach ($rule in $rulesToImport)
{
 $index++
 Write-Host "Importing rule '$($rule.Name)' $index/$($rulesToImport.Count)."
 Invoke-Expression $($rule.version.commandBlock.InnerText) | Out-Null
}
4. Update the following line with the path and filename of the mail flow rule XML collection that you want to
import:
[xml]$xml = Get-Content "C:\MailFlowRuleCollections\RuleCollectionToImport.xml"
5. Save the file as .ps1 in a location that's easy for you to find (for example, C:\Data\Import-Rules.ps1 ).
6. In PowerShell, use the following syntax to run the script:
& "<Path to script file>\<FileName>.ps1"
For example:
& "C:\Data\Import-Rules.ps1"
Need more help?
Mail flow rules (transport rules) in Exchange Online
Mail flow rule conditions and exceptions (predicates) in Exchange Online
Mail flow rule actions in Exchange Online
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/security-and-compliance/mail-flow-rules/manage-mail-flow-rules
Page 9 of 10

Journal, transport, and inbox rule limits
Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/security-and-compliance/mail-flow-rules/manage-mail-flow-rules
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/security-and-compliance/mail-flow-rules/manage-mail-flow-rules
Page 10 of 10