How do I change the account name of a user?

Summary

Details

The following article will discuss the steps required to change a user's account name in the Kerio MailServer. For a variety of reasons, such as a name change after becoming married, it may be necessary to change the account name of a user. The user will have to use the new account name when logging in from any client and the default email address for the user will change to the new address (such as newname@company.com).

It is recommended that you create a full backup before you apply any changes. You can make a backup using the Backup feature in Kerio MailServer, or by copying mailserver.cfg , users.cfg and the store directory. Please review this section of our manual for instructions on creating a full backup.

The following steps are all that is necessary for a basic renaming of a user account.

 This process requires that you stop the MailServer for a period of time.

1. Stop Kerio MailServer

2. Rename the user's account directory in the store folder to the new account name.

   First navigate to the directory where user's mail is stored. The store location can be found in the Admin Console in the Configuration -> Advanced Options -> Store Directory screen. If KMS is installed on Mac or Linux, you will have to log in to the KMS machine as "root". From the store location, navigate into the domain directory, e.g., mail/company.com. Find the user's directory (e.g., jdoe) and rename it to the new account name (e.g., jsmith).

3. Start Kerio MailServer

4. In the Admin Console, add the new user and delete the old user (choose the option to NOT delete the user's mail). Click on Apply.

   If the user uses the Outlook Connector with the Offline Edition (KOFF), create a new profile. In Entourage or other clients, change the login information in the Account Settings and restart the client.

   Because of the complexity of changing the folder sharing and subscribing files, it is recommended that you instruct your users to re-share any folders they had shared with this user and re-subscribe to any folders of this user.

   If it is desirable to have future incoming mail that is sent to the old account to go to the new account, create an alias which will deliver any mail addressed to the old email address (such as oldname@company.com) to the new address (such as newname@company.com).

   Any events created before renaming will not be available for editing or removing after application of the new name.