Give Domain Admin access to all mailboxes exchange 2010

As many folk have probably run into the domain admin from time to time is asked to obtain emails etc. from users mailboxes for whatever reason. You could reset the users password and login that way but what if you do not want to do that?

well you can give a user access to all mailboxes using the power of the exchange management shell!

You can use this command to grant user full access  permission on the database:

Get-MailboxDatabase| Add-ADPermission –user Administrator –AccessRights GenericAll

but I prefer getting into the mailboxes via webmail as it is quick and easy so I also run this command

Get-Mailbox | Add-MailboxPermission -User administrator -AccessRights Fullaccess -InheritanceType all

Please note that you will have to run the command again as you create new mailboxes in exchange.

For you GUI loving folks you can use the following:

You need to be assigned permissions before you can perform this procedure. To see what permissions you need, see the “Permissions and delegation” entry in the Mailbox Permissions topic.

1. In the console tree, navigate to Recipient Configuration > Mailbox.
2. In the result pane, select the mailbox for which you want to grant Full Access permission.
3. In the action pane, under the mailbox name, click Manage Full Access Permission. The Manage Full Access Permission wizard opens.
4. On the Manage Full Access Permission page, click Add.
5. In Select User or Group, select the user to which you want to grant Full Access permission, and then click OK.
6. Click Manage.
7. On the Completion page, the Summary states whether Full Access permission was successfully granted. The summary also displays the Shell command used to grant Full Access permission.
8. Click Finish.

Hope this helps!