Folder Permissions Manager and the retirement of Exchange Web Services

Summary

Microsoft is retiring Exchange Web Services (EWS) in Exchange Online.

The retirement will take place in two stages:

• 1 October 2026: Microsoft begins phased EWS disablement across Exchange Online organisations.
• 1 April 2027: EWS is disabled in Exchange Online.

Folder Permissions Manager and EWS

Folder Permissions Manager version 10 uses EWS to access Exchange Online mailboxes.

Microsoft has released a new Exchange Online Admin API, but this currently has a known issue managing mailbox folder permissions and does not support managing delegates.

Symprex is working directly with Microsoft to attempt to get these issues resolved.

Workaround

It is possible to extend EWS until at least to April, 2027

The following steps detail how to enable this on your Microsoft 365 tenant:

1. Obtain the application ID from Microsoft Entra

• Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin centre
• Go to Microsoft Entra ID → Enterprise pplications → All applications
• Search for Symprex Folder Permissions Manager
• On the application’s Overview page, copy the value labelled Application ID.

2. Open Powershell as and administrator and connect to Exchange Online:

Connect-ExchangeOnline

2. Sign in using an Exchange Administrator or Global Administrator account
3. Enable EWS by running the following:

Set-OrganizationConfig -EwsEnabled $true -EwsAllowedAppIDs "{applicationID}"

where {applicationID} is the ID copied in step 1.

4. Confirm EWS enabled and the configured list by running:

Get-OrganizationConfig | Format-List EwsEnabled

Get-OrganizationConfig -RetrieveEwsOperationAccessPolicy Format-List EwsAllowedAppIDs