How to Bulk Update ProxyAddresses Attribute

In this guide, I’m going to show you how to update the ProxyAddresses attribute for single and multiple user accounts. 

Bulk updating the ProxyAddresses is often required when migrating to Office 365, creating new accounts, adding a new domain, and so on. 

To bulk update user accounts you will need to use PowerShell or a third party tool. Don’t worry if you are not familiar with PowerShell as I provide step by step instructions. If you want to skip PowerShell then I’ll show you the GUI tool I created that is easy to use and requires no coding. 

Table of Contents: 

Video Tutorial

In the video below, I demonstrate how to bulk add and update the proxyAddresses attribute by using the AD Pro Toolkit.

Bulk Add ProxyAddress for Multiple Users with GUI Tool

In this example, I’m going to use the Active Directory Bulk User Update Tool. This easy to use GUI tool lets you quickly bulk update any user attribute, you can even update multiple attributes at once. 

In this example, I’ll add proxyAddresses to multiple user accounts.

Step 1. Download GUI Tool

The bulk user updater is 1 of 14 tools included in the AD Pro Toolkit. You can download a free trial and try it for yourself.

Click here to download a free trial

Step 2. Open the User Bulk Updater Tool

From the list of tools click on “User Bulk Updater”.

Step 3. Download and Edit the CSV Template

1. Click the “Download CSV Template” button and save it to your computer.

2. Open the CSV template and add the new proxyaddress to the proxyAddresses column. If you are not updating other attributes you can remove them from the template to make it easier to work with.

CSV template example.

In this example, I’m adding a new proxyaddress to all of these user accounts. Existing addresses will not be modified. To modify existing addresses see the next section.

  • sAMAccountName column = The user’s logon name that you want to update.
  • proxyAddresses column = The new proxy address you want to add to the user account. To add multiple proxy addresses separate them with a column.

Tip: You can get a list of all user’s logon names (sAMAccountName) including their existing proxy addresses by using the export tool.

Step 4. Select Add New from Update Options

Click on the Update Options button and make sure “Add New” is selected under ProxyAddress Options.

Click OK.

Step 5. Select your CSV file and click run

Now click the “Select Template” button and select your CSV template file and click Run.

Check the logs for any errors.

To verify that the new proxyaddress was added to all of the accounts you can use the export users tool.

Click on the Export Users tool and make sure the proxyAddresses column is added, if not click on columns and add it.

Select the entire domain and OU or group and click run. Because I didn’t update all users I will filter for the new domain.

I can now see all of the accounts that the new address (newdomain123.com) has been added.

How to Update Existing ProxyAddresses using GUI Tool

What if you want to update or modify existing proxyAddresses?

No problem.

The provided csv template includes a proxyAddresses_update column. The proxyAddresses column will be the target address and the proxyAddresses_update column will be the address to replace it with.

  • In the above screenshot, the user Harriett.Jones currently has the address smtp:Harriett.Jones@newdomain123.com
  • It will be updated to the address smtp:Harriett.Jones_updated@newdomain123.com

In the User Bulk Updater tool click on “Update Options” and select “Update Existing”.

Click OK.

Next, click the “Select Template” button and select your CSV file.

Next, Click run.

After running the tool I’ll check the Harriett Jones account.

I can see the address smtp:Harriett.Jones@newdomain123.com

has been replaced with smtp:Harriett.Jones_updated@newdomain123.com.

To easily check multiple accounts use the export users tool to view attributes for multiple user accounts.

Remove ProxyAddress for Multiple User Accounts

Note: This will remove all proxyaddresses for the user account. This is useful if you need to reset accounts addresses so you can add them back as needed.

Step 1. Backup ProxyAddresses

Before you remove proxyaddresses I recommend backing up all users.

Open the toolkit and click on “Export Users”.

Make sure the proxyAddresses column is added and click run.

Click the export button to export the list to a file.

export proxyaddresses to a file for backup

Step 2. Remove ProxyAddresses

Next, create a CSV template. It needs to include the users sAmAccountName and proxyAddresses column.

Put remove in the proxyAddress column.

Here is an example CSV file.

Next, open the user bulk updater tool, select your CSV file, and click run.

In this example, the logs show 36 users have been updated.

I can verify if the proxyAddress has been removed by looking at a single account or using the Export Users Tool.

You can filter the proxyAddresses column for blanks.

How to Add ProxyAddresses using PowerShell

In this first example, I’ll show you how to add a ProxyAddresses using PowerShell. 

Using the -add parameter will not remove or update existing addresses, it will just add the additional address you specify. 

I’m going to add a new address to the user account Adrienne.Williams. 

First I’ll run a command to get the users current ProxyAddresses

get-aduser adrienne.williams -Properties ProxyAddresses | select Name, ProxyAddresses

You can see this user has one ProxyAddress. Now I will use the command below to add a second proxyaddress.

Set-ADUser Adrienne.Williams -add @{ProxyAddresses="smtp:adrienne.williams.mail.onmicrosoft.com"}

Now I’ll list the user’s addresses again and you can see the user now has two addresses. 

If you want to add multiple ProxyAddresses at once use this command 

Set-ADUser Adrienne.Williams -add @{ProxyAddresses="smtp:adrienne.williams.mail.onmicrosoft.com,SMTP:adrienne.williams.mail.onmicrosoft.com" -split ","}

With the above command, you can add as many addresses as you want, just separate each one with a comma. 

How to Replace ProxyAddresses using PowerShell

You can use the -replace parameter to replace the user’s current ProxyAddress value. 

Warning: Using the -replace parameter will replace all addresses with the values you provide. 

Let’s list the user’s current addresses

get-aduser adrienne.williams -Properties ProxyAddresses | select Name, ProxyAddresses

So this user has two addresses listed. I’m going to pretend these addresses are wrong or no longer needed and replace them all. 

Use this command to replace the ProxyAddresses.

Set-ADUser Adrienne.Williams -replace @{ProxyAddresses="SMTP:adrienne.williams.activedirectorypro.com"}

Now I’ll check the account.

You can see the -replace command cleared out both addresses and replaced it with the single address. 

If you want to replace the value with multiple address use this command.

Set-ADUser Adrienne.Williams -replace @{ProxyAddresses="SMTP:adrienne.williams.activedirectorypro.com,SMTP:adrienne.williams.ad.com" -split ","}

How to Remove ProxyAddresses using PowerShell

You can use the -remove parameter to remove single or multiple addresses. 

Remove single address.

Set-ADUser Adrienne.Williams -remove @{ProxyAddresses="SMTP:adrienne.williams.activedirectorypro.com"}

Remove multiple addresses.

Set-ADUser Adrienne.Williams -remove @{ProxyAddresses="SMTP:adrienne.williams.activedirectorypro.com,SMTP:adrienne.williams.ad.com" -split ","}

Bulk Add ProxyAddress for Multiple Accounts using PowerShell

To update multiple user accounts you will need to set up a CSV file with a samaccountname column and proxyaddresses column. 

Enter as many proxyaddresses as you need and separate them by a comma.

Here is an example of a CSV file. 

For this example, I’m going to update all the users in the Administrations organizational unit. To list all the users current addresses in an OU run the command below. You will need to change the value of the -SearchBase to the distinguished name of the OU. 

get-aduser -filter * -SearchBase "OU=Administrations,OU=ADPRO Users,DC=ad,DC=activedirectorypro,DC=com" -Properties ProxyAddresses | select Name, ProxyAddresses

You can see two users have proxyaddresses and the rest do not. 

To update these accounts with the information in the CSV file, use the command below. You will need to update the path to your CSV file.

Import-Csv "C:\it\bulk-proxy2.csv" | foreach {Set-ADUser -Identity $_.samaccountname -add @{Proxyaddresses=$_.Proxyaddresses -split ","}}

Now I’ll check the values if they have been updated. 

Great!

It looks like all the accounts in the Administrations OU have been updated from the CSV file. 

Summary 

If you are using Azure AD connect or using Office 365  then knowing how to bulk update users ProxyAddresses attribute is a must. In this guide, I showed you multiple examples for updating single accounts, adding multiple addresses, and bulk updating a list of accounts from a CSV file

PowerShell is a great tool for making mass changes to Active Directory users but for those that want a GUI option, the AD Bulk User Update tool is a simple and easy solution. 

Let me know in the comments below if you have any questions. 

Related Articles

Bulk Add & Update ProxyAddresses

with the AD Pro Toolkit

Download Free Trial ->

28 thoughts on “How to Bulk Update ProxyAddresses Attribute”

  1. Hi Robert,

    This tutorial is only for on-premise, right?
    Is there a way to remove an address in “ProxyAddresses” for the Azure AD PowerShell module? I have the feeling it is locked and only modified in license updates.
    The user does not have a license (and therefore no mailbox) so the Exchange Online Powershell module is not an option.

    I could just add a license to the user and then change the E-Mail aliases in the EAC but then it would still be billed after I revoke the license?

    Reply
  2. This was very useful, i need to readdress many proxy addresses as part of an acquisition and using EAP is not going to work.

    What i noticed was that i ended up with two Primary SMTP addresses, so need to figure a way to overwrite the original primary SMTP.

    Reply
    • With the GUI tool, you can use the remove option to remove all the proxy addresses then add them back with only the addresses needed. I’ve had several customers use this method.

      Reply
  3. Hi guys
    if you want to insert multiple addresses in proxyadresses field , I modified the code and the csv like this:

    csv:
    samaccountname&Proxyaddresses&Proxyaddresses2&Proxyaddresses3
    use1r&smtp:user1_email@domain.com&SMTP:user2_email_primary_email@domain.com&smtp:anotheralias_email@domain.com

    code:

    Import-Csv “C:\temp\deploy.csv” -Delimiter “&” | foreach {Set-ADUser -Identity $_.samaccountname -add @{Proxyaddresses=$_.Proxyaddresses -split “&”}
    Set-ADUser -Identity $_.samaccountname -add @{Proxyaddresses=$_.Proxyaddresses2 -split “&”}
    Set-ADUser -Identity $_.samaccountname -add @{Proxyaddresses=$_.Proxyaddresses3 -split “&”}}

    with this , the code enter for each user 3 times to put the diferents proxyaddresses..

    I hope someone will find it useful!

    Reply
  4. Thanks for this cool manual, but i run into different issues…
    the most i was able to solve but one is pretty hard…

    if i have multiple smtp adrresses for example: smtp:user1@ms.com,user01@ms.com
    it will only set the first e-mail address but not all the others….
    any idea how i could fix this?

    thanks and regards

    Reply
    • Not sure if you got this figured out but I would say that the second one is a violation because it doesnt have a proxy type. In this example we user SMTP then we separate the Proxy type from the address. So you can have many others SIP, X500, SMTP etc. So change your code to be smtp:user1@ms.com,SMTP:user01@ms.com.

      Reply
  5. Hello,
    I’ve find what is the issue with the error “Cannot validate argument on parameter ‘Identity’. The argument is null.”
    you must create a CSV with the comma “,” separator not “;”
    and then change the comma separator between each smtp address by another character instead of “,” in my case I’ve used the character “&”, and then the command worked well.
    So here is the command line: Import-Csv “C:\it\bulk-proxy2.csv” | foreach {Set-ADUser -Identity $_.samaccountname -add @{Proxyaddresses=$_.Proxyaddresses -split “&”}}

    Reply
  6. Hello, it states that you can remove proxy addresses by adding the word remove. I’ve tried updating, but it doesn’t seem to remove the proxy addresses. Do you have the syntax?

    Reply
  7. If i run manual PS … \users.csv” | foreach {Set-ADUser -Identity $_.samaccountname -add @{ …
    it is successful in adding the proxyaddresses from the csv
    When i use the ADBulkUserUpdate tool it removes all existing addresses and puts the csv proxyaddresses as a single entry when i use the same csv

    Reply
    • I’ve updated the tool to append the proxyaddresses instead of removing and putting only what’s in the CSV. If you need to remove values you can add the word remove to the csv.

      Reply
  8. Planning to do a bulk roll out of 300 users. Can I update the spreadsheet and add a “mail” attribute? The email address isn’t using the same UPN suffix as the login domain so I would like to add the emails that will be used.

    Reply
  9. Purchased your tool, but it doesn’t work. I have created the CSV exactly like you propose, and the tool can read the attributes in the file – but when I run it, I’m just told that it cannot update the attributes.
    Why?

    Reply
  10. Bulk update using CSV file fails. It seems parameter ‘Identity’ is missing:

    “Set-ADUser : Cannot validate argument on parameter ‘Identity’. The argument is null.”

    Reply
  11. Hi!
    When I use the command:

    Import-Csv “C:\Temp\users.csv” | foreach {Set-ADUser -Identity $_.samaccountname -add @{Proxyaddresses=$_.Proxyaddresses -split “,”}}

    I got the following error:
    Set-ADUser : Cannot validate argument on parameter ‘Identity’. The argument is null. Provide a valid value for the
    argument, and then try running the command again.
    At line:1 char:64
    + … \users.csv” | foreach {Set-ADUser -Identity $_.samaccountname -add @{ …
    + ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo : InvalidData: (:) [Set-ADUser], ParameterBindingValidationException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : ParameterArgumentValidationError,Microsoft.ActiveDirectory.Management.Commands.SetADUser

    The csv file is prepared in the same way you described above. What am I doing wrong?

    Reply
  12. The above multiple is not working with either the script or GUI Tool, script adds the value “Microsoft.ActiveDirectory.Manamgement.ADPropertyValueCollection”, GUI Tool adds all values on the same line.

    Reply
    • When did you download the GUI tool? I recently updated it to fix the issue of putting the values on the same line. If you log in you can download the latest version.

      Reply

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