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A Resource Mailbox is used when scheduling meetings, it is used to book physical rooms. By using Resource Mailboxes allows user to allocate a time slot against the resource and prevents other users from booking the same resource.  The resource will appear in Outlook on the Web or the Outlook client. This provides a simple and efficient way of managing resources in an organisation.

An Exchange resource mailbox is a special mailbox in Microsoft Exchange used to represent a resource that people can book, rather than a person.

Common examples are:

• Meeting rooms — e.g. “Conference Room 1”
• Equipment — e.g. “Company Van” or “Projector”
• Other shared resources that need calendar-based booking

Example

Suppose your company has a meeting room called “Boardroom”.

Instead of giving the room a normal user account, you create a resource mailbox for it:

Boardroom → resource mailbox → has its own calendar

Someone can then invite Boardroom to a meeting in Outlook. Exchange can automatically:

• Check whether the room is available
• Accept or decline the booking
• Prevent double-booking
• Maintain the room's calendar
• Apply booking rules, such as maximum booking duration

Resource mailbox vs normal mailbox

In Exchange terminology, you'll commonly see Room Mailbox and Equipment Mailbox as the two main types of resource mailbox.

Resource mailboxes are free to create with the Professional and Enterprise plans.