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How to Generate a Monthly Sent and Received Email Report for a Shared Mailbox in Microsoft 365

Ayan Masood Oct 23, 2026 868 views

Question details

The user needs to create an automated monthly report detailing the volume of emails sent and received by a shared mailbox.

How to Generate a Monthly Sent and Received Email Report for a Shared Mailbox in Microsoft 365

Product: Microsoft 365
Device & OS: not provided
Scenario: Monitoring shared mailbox activity to track team productivity, customer support volumes, or departmental communication metrics on a monthly basis.
Observed behavior: The standard Microsoft 365 Email Activity report only tracks data for licensed user mailboxes and does not display statistics for free shared mailboxes.

Before you start

Ensure you have Exchange Administrator or Global Administrator privileges in your Microsoft 365 tenant to access the Exchange admin center and run message traces.

Solution 1Recommended

Use Exchange Online Message Trace to Export Email Counts

This method utilizes the built-in Message Trace feature in the Exchange Admin Center to manually query and export up to 90 days of sent and received data for the shared mailbox.

Since standard activity reports do not cover shared mailboxes, a historical message trace allows administrators to search for all emails sent to and from a specific address. You can export this trace as a CSV file to count the monthly totals.

Note that queries spanning more than 10 days are considered historical searches and will take some time to process before the CSV is ready for download.

Access the Exchange admin center

Log in to the Microsoft 365 admin center, expand the left navigation menu, and click on 'Exchange' under the Admin centers section.

Navigate to Message trace

Go to 'Mail flow' in the left-hand menu and select 'Message trace'. Click on 'Start a trace'.

Configure the trace parameters

Enter the shared mailbox address in both the 'Senders' and 'Recipients' fields (run them one at a time to separate sent and received counts). Set the time range to your desired month (up to 90 days in the past).

Submit the historical search

Select 'Extended report' or 'Summary report' and enter your email address for notification. Click 'Search' to queue the report.

Download and analyze the report

Once completed, download the CSV file from the 'Downloadable reports' tab. Open the file in a spreadsheet application to count the total rows, which represents the total email volume for that month.

Use Exchange Online Message Trace to Export Email Counts

Automation limitation: The Message Trace interface in the admin center requires manual execution. For full monthly automation, a script or third-party reporting tool is required.

Solution 2

Automate Data Collection via Exchange Online PowerShell

Administrators can write a PowerShell script to routinely query message trace data and output the sent/received counts to a CSV file.

Free Microsoft Office alternative

Analyze Your Exported Microsoft 365 Email Reports with WPS Office

After exporting your shared mailbox activity logs as CSV files from the Exchange admin center, you need a robust spreadsheet tool to filter, count, and format the data. WPS Office is a free, lightweight suite that handles large datasets effortlessly while maintaining full compatibility with Microsoft formats.

1. Open your exported report: Launch WPS Spreadsheet, go to Menu > Open, and select the CSV file exported from the Exchange Message Trace.
2. Format the data: Use the Text to Columns feature if necessary, and apply table formatting to easily read the sender, recipient, and date columns.
3. Summarize with Pivot Tables: Navigate to the Insert tab, select Pivot Table, and group the data by date or sender to instantly calculate the total monthly email volume.

100% format compatibility with Microsoft Excel (.xlsx, .xls) and CSV filesBuilt-in Pivot Tables to instantly summarize monthly sent and received email countsFree and lightweight alternative to Microsoft Office with a familiar user interfaceAdvanced charting tools to visualize shared mailbox activity trends over time

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Frequently Asked Questions

Why is the shared mailbox not showing up in the Microsoft 365 Email Activity report?

By default, the Microsoft 365 Email Activity report is designed to only collect and display data for mailboxes associated with licensed users. Since shared mailboxes typically do not require or consume a license, their metrics are excluded from this standard report.

Can I assign a license to a shared mailbox to track its activity?

Yes, assigning a Microsoft 365 license to a shared mailbox will eventually allow it to appear in the Email Activity reports. However, this is generally not recommended as it incurs unnecessary monthly licensing costs just for reporting purposes.

How far back can I search for email activity in a shared mailbox?

Using the standard Get-MessageTrace cmdlet or quick search in the admin center, you can view data up to 10 days old. For older data, you must use a historical message trace, which allows you to query email records up to 90 days in the past.

Are there third-party tools for shared mailbox reporting?

Yes, many organizations use third-party Microsoft 365 management and reporting tools. These tools utilize the Microsoft Graph API behind the scenes to collect, store, and present long-term shared mailbox usage metrics without manual CSV exports.

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