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: 

• Bulk Add ProxyAddress for Multiple Users with GUI Tool
• Bulk Update Existing ProxyAddresses with GUI Tool
• Remove ProxyAddress for Multiple User Accounts
• Add ProxyAddresses using PowerShell 
• Replace ProxyAddresses using PowerShell
• Remove ProxyAddresses using PowerShell

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.

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. 

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