Microsoft has announced that they're retiring the Exchange Web Services (EWS) for Exchange Online, with blocking starting on October 1, 2026, and the final shutdown on April 1, 2027. This is causing concern for those relying on Public Folders, particularly for syncing contacts and calendars with third-party tools like phone systems and CRMs. Many of these integrations depend on EWS and, from my research, it seems that Microsoft Graph isn't a direct replacement for many Public Folder scenarios.
For instance, when our sales team tried syncing Public Folder contacts into our phone system, we hit authentication errors, revealing that our vendor still depends on EWS without a solid upgrade path to Graph.
I want to gauge how significant this issue is within other organizations before the deadline. What strategies are others using for their Public Folder dependencies? Are you transitioning to Shared Mailboxes, restructuring around a CRM, or exporting the data elsewhere? Or is there hope that Microsoft will offer a better solution? The deadline might feel distant, but the migration process for shared contacts seems like it could take longer than expected without disrupting our Sales workflows.
5 Answers
Honestly, it's about time we move away from Public Folders. They were great a decade ago, but now they're outdated. Complaining about Microsoft dropping support doesn't make sense when they've been signaling this for years.
I've avoided Public Folders since Exchange 5.5! It's like trying to keep a VCR alive when better options exist, like moving to shared mailboxes or Microsoft 365 groups. If your vendors rely on Public Folders, you're bound to face challenges.
I've switched most of our Public Folders to departmental SharePoint sites or Microsoft 365 Groups. We've seen the writing on the wall for a while, so we started migration over five years ago.
You really should audit your tools to see what relies on EWS. There's an Exchange report that can help identify which tools are affected, but third-party apps might not show up. You'll want to check with vendors on their timeline for moving to Graph before running into problems.
Make sure to find a vendor that is keeping up with changes. If they haven't provided a migration plan by now, it's a sign to move on. EWS has been deprecated since 2023; there's no need to stick with vendors who aren't evolving.
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