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We have a exchange 2016 server with some mailboxes and also use Rackspace email service with same mailboxes as on Exchange server. The MX record for the domain is pointed to Rackspace server, so when I send an email from exchange(OWA/ outlook) to a mailbox ( on both exchange and Racspace ) the email goes to exchange server despite of the MX record.

How can I force Exchange server to use MX record rather than just routing email to internal mailboxes?

Akhil krishna A
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2 Answers2

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You can't.

Exchange will never use MX records for internal email. If the email address is matched to a mailbox on the server, then it will deliver to that mailbox without any DNS lookups.

You need to review your configuration, which as it stands will not work. The only service that allows you to mix cloud and on premise is Office365.

Sembee
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You need to set your domain as Internal Relay and then use one of two ways: 1. configure mail forwarding for exchange mailbox to exchange mailcontact on rackspace (you'll need to create custom email address like j.doe_rackspace@domain.com and forward messages there) 2. you disable mailbox in exchange and make user as a mail user with external mail j.doe@domain.com. This way exchange will see that mailbox is not on exchange and will route emails to smarthosts , used in send connectors (only if domain in InternalRelay type)

Ilya Kutsev
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  • +1, this approach worked well for us—trying to maintain a handful of Outlook/Exchange accounts, after migrating the majority of our staff to Google Workspace. Here's [a related article](https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/36118.configure-email-coexistence-between-office-365-google-apps.aspx) that got me the rest of the way there, in case it's helpful for others. – cdwyer Jun 02 '22 at 02:57