Clean up Exchange online GAL ???

[mikkydoos]

Hey all,

 

I've been doing a lot of cleaning up of expired group/user objects in Azure and Exchange.

 

I'm trying to find a way to remove GAL entries for old distribution lists and security groups I've removed.

After a few days they're still appearing in the address fields in Outlook web and sharing from Sharepoint/Onedrive.

 

This is making it a bit confusing for users as there are multiple similarly named groups they can choose from when e.g. composing an email.

 

Also turning on 'Hide from the global address list' for groups/lists I've kept that I don't want displayed are still showing up, although users aren't displayed when hitting  +  to show the objects within the group.

 

 

Does anyone know of a way how to clean this up globally for all users ??

 

 

 

Cheers in advance   

 

[Steve21]

How many days is a few? By default think the GAL only updates once every 48/72 hours

 

And then if it’s stored in someone’s offline address book etc would take bit longer after the above has already sync’d as that’s local to client

 

Then finally any autocomplete lists stored on  user wouldn’t remove it automatically until their cache is cleared as that’s not pulling from GAL

 

Steve 

[mikkydoos]

On 05/04/2025 at 09:52, Steve21 said:

How many days is a few? By default think the GAL only updates once every 48/72 hours

 

And then if it’s stored in someone’s offline address book etc would take bit longer after the above has already sync’d as that’s local to client

 

Then finally any autocomplete lists stored on  user wouldn’t remove it automatically until their cache is cleared as that’s not pulling from GAL

 

Steve 

 

Few days = a week.  I think the users cache is the issue.