Replacing Exchange & Outlook¶

Microsoft Exchange is the central component for email, calendar and contacts. These are usually grouped in mailboxes, which can be shared. In Nextcloud, there is no concept of a mailbox, since email is separated from calendars, tasks and contacts. It is however possible to recreate the typical Exchange features with Nextcloud.

Where to find Exchange features¶

Calendars, tasks and contacts can be found in the respective apps. In larger organizations, tasks are usually managed in Nextcloud Deck, while calendars are in the Calendar app and contacts in the Contacts app. Calendars, Deck boards and address books can be shared with individual users, groups or even Nextcloud Teams.

Email can be found in Nextcloud Mail. The Mail app, is just an email client, while Exchange also provides an email server necessary to send and receive mail. To replace that, organizations can either use an existing mail server10 , install one of their choosing, or select one from partner offerings which customers can get with their Nextcloud license. You can find more information on that at the Nextcloud Platform homepage.

Shared mailboxes¶

When using Exchange, it is very common to also use shared mailboxes to provide an email account to a department, for example, or to have a department calendar. As described before, creating something like a shared mailbox in Nextcloud does not happen in a central place, but at the resources you want to share.

Let’s start with email: since Nextcloud itself does not deliver the mail server, it is necessary to set up a mailbox separately. You can do that the same way you do it in Microsoft Exchange by creating an inactive/deactivated account in your Identification Provider (IdP) and import that on your mail server. The mailbox can then be added through OCC commands to your users. Calendars, tasks and contacts should be shared either to groups or Teams.

It is also possible to book rooms and resources through Nextcloud Calendar. Users can select them when inviting attendees to an event and see whether they are available or not. For more information please visit the documentation.