Exchange Online transport rule to remove email header sensitivity private

How to create an Exchange online transport rule to change email header sensitivity "Private" to "Normal" for shared mailboxes. 

Outlook sensitivity levels

In Outlook, you can set the following sensitivity levels for emails: normal, personal, private, or confidential.

The sensitivity level doesn't stop anyone from reading or forwarding the email unless you also have Office 365 Message Encryption or Information Rights Management (IRM) configured

But, messages that have the sensitivity level set to private cannot be read, forwarded or moved in shared mailboxes.

To prevent this problem, we will create an Exchange online transport rule to remove the email header sensitivity private for inbound emails to shared mailboxes.

Create distribution list for shared mailboxes

The transport rule to remove the email sensitivity header will be only be applied to shared mailboxes in this distribution group

Exchange Online admin center

Recipients - Groups - New - Distribution List

Display name: Shared Mailboxes
Alias: SharedMailboxes

Add shared mailboxes as members

Set membership to closed

Add a note: Used for Transport rule to remove email header sensitivity private
and hide the distribution group from address lists

Create Exchange online transport rule

Exchange Online admin center

Mail flow - rules - add - create new rule

Name: Remove Sensitivity Header Private

Apply this rule if..
The recipient is a member of Shared Mailboxes
and
A message header includes Sensitivity header includes Private

Do the following..
Set the message header Sensitivity to the value Normal

Choose a mode for this rule: Enforce

Test the transport rule using Outlook

Test the transport rule by sending an email with sensitivity set to private to a shared mailbox.

If the transport rule is working, it will change the message sensitivity header from "Private" to "Normal" and you will be able to see the email in the shared mailbox.

Check Email message headers

You can also check the message headers to see if the transport rule is working OK.
The message headers will show sensitivity "Private" changed to sensitivity "Normal"

Example: Message header Sensitivity: Private

Example: Message header Sensitivity: Normal