How to Set Up an Email Disclaimer in Microsoft 365 (Exchange Online)?

An E-mail disclaimer is a small piece of information that warns you that the email item contains confidential information (the recipient should not copy, forward, or print the message), copyright information, legal notice, or etc. An e-mail disclaimer is typically added at the end of any outgoing email sent inside or outside your organization. In this article, we’ll show you how to add a disclaimer to all outgoing emails in Exchange Online (Microsoft 365).

In Exchange Online, you can use transport rules (mail flow rules) to create and apply a disclaimer to all outbound e-mail messages.

1. Sign-in to Exchange Admin Center Under an account with “Organization Management” permission;
2. Expand the section Mail flow > Rules.
3. Click Add a rule and select the rule type Apply disclaimers;
   
4. Specify the name of the disclaimer: Default Legal Notice Disclaimer Outbound.
5. Then configure the following options:
   Apply this rule if: The recipient is external/internal -> located outside the organization (NotInOrganization)
   Do the following: Apply a disclaimer to the message -> append disclaimer
6. You can use simple plain text or rich HTML formatted text as a disclaimer (legal notice). In this example, we will paste the following HTML code:

   <div style="background-color:#D5EAFF; border:1px solid #336699; padding:.6em; ">
   
   <span style="font-size:12pt; color:#CC0000;">Disclaimer</span></br>
   
   <p> <i>
   
   The contents of this e-mail are intended only for the person or entity to whom it is addressed. This e-mail may contain confidential information. If you are not the person to whom this message is addressed, please note that any use, reproduction or distribution of this message is strictly prohibited. If you have received this in error, please contact the sender and delete this email and any attachments immediately.</i></p>
   
   <span style="padding-top:10px; font-weight:bold; color:#CC3399; font-size:10pt; <a href="https://theitbros.com/"> TheITBros.com</a></span></br>
   
   </div>

7. Select Wrap in the Select one if the disclaimer can’t be inserted field (this option is also known as fallback for the disclaimer rule). In this mode, if Exchange cannot change the content of some messages and add a disclaimer to an e-mail (for example, if it is encrypted), it creates a new e-mail and adds the original message to it as an attachment.
   Note. You can also use the following options here: Ignore (send the message without the disclaimer) or Reject (the email will not be sent and the NDR message will be generated).
   
8. Click Next;
9. On the next screen, select Rule mode > Enforce (to apply immediately) > Next;
   
10. To apply the new transport rule, click it and select Enabled.
    

Try sending any email to an external email address (outside your Exchange Online tenant). The transport rule will automatically add the HTML code of your disclaimer to the e-mail message.

Note that you can personalize a global email disclaimer by automatically inserting user information from the Azure AD attribute. For example, to include the sender’s name in the disclaimer text, add %%DisplayName%% to the disclaimer HTML code. Disclaimer text also supports the following sender tokens:

• %%City%%
• %%Company%%
• %%CountryOrRegion%%
• %%Department%%
• %%DisplayName%%
• %%Fax%%
• %%FirstName%%
• %%HomePhone%%
• %%Initials%%
• %%LastName%%
• %%Manager%%
• %%MobilePhone%%
• %%Notes%%
• %%Office%%
• %%Pager%%
• %%Phone%%
• %%PostalCode%%
• %%PostOfficeBox%%
• %%StateOrProvince%%
• %%StreetAddress%%
• %%Title%%
• %%UserPrincipalName%%
• %%WindowsEmailAddress%%

You can also create and apply disclaimer in Exchange Online using PowerShell. Connect to your Exchange Online tenant:

Connect-ExchangeOnline

Create a new mail flow rule:

New-TransportRule -Name ExtDisclaimer -SentToScope 'NotInOrganization' -FromScope 'InOrganization' -ApplyHtmlDisclaimerLocation Append 'NotInOrganization' -ApplyHtmlDisclaimerText "Your legal notice disclaimer text" -ApplyHtmlDisclaimerFallbackAction Wrap

Then enable the mail flow rule:

Enable-TransportRule -Identity ExtDisclaimer