Marek Dubsky

Product Experience

1 minute read

If you are an Office 365 administrator, I believe that you have experienced this scenario. The situation when you want to add a domain to an Office 365 tenant, but you cannot because it is blocked by a different tenant .

More specifically, a customer wants you to set up a domain in their current tenant and when you try to add the domain it keeps telling you that the domain is being used already.

But when you ask the customer they do not know, they had used the domain previously in a different tenant. Then usually it goes down that the customer gets angry or impatient but you cannot solve it easily because you do not have an access to the historical tenant to remove the domain.

If you know the feeling, this blog will save you a lot of time and grey hair.
The solution is actually very easy and you do not even need the access to the historical tenant.

All you need is:

  • Basic PowerShell knowledge
  • Access to the domain provider
  • Administrator access to the current tenant.

Here are the steps, you need to do:

  1. To connect to Azure AD via PowerShell , install the Sign in assistant:
    https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=41950
  2. Run PowerShell as an adminstrator

And now the commands:

Set-ExecutionPolicy unrestricted
Install-Module MSOnline (install module)
Connect-MsolService
Sign in as an Administrator of the current tenant (where the domain should be verified to)
New-MsolDomain –name domain.cz (adding domain)
Get-MsolDomain (check the status - should be Unverified)
Get-MsolDomainVerificationDns –DomainName domain.cz –Mode DnsTxtRecord (to get the TXT record, which should be set at domain provider)
Add the generated TXT record to the domain provider (it should look like MS=xxxxxx)
As soon as you are sure, that the record is visible at MX Toolbox or whatismydns.net, you can move forward to the next step
Confirm-MsolDomain –DomainName domain.cz –ForceTakeover Force

Let us know in comments if it helped you or if you have any questions!

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/azure/authenticate-azureps?view=azps-2.4.0
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/users-groups-roles/domains-admin-takeover

Comments

Martin

Hello Marek, I am so glad to come by your advice. I like how simply you desribe it. I have done all the steps but final one cannot be completed. I get this message: “Confirm-MsolDomain : Unable to verify this domain because it is used elsewhere in Office 365. Remove the verified domain from the other service before adding it here.” I checked and the TXT Record is set properly, so I have no clue, what is wrong :-(

Marek

Glad it helped you, Luiz!

Martin, I believe we have talked in email, right?

Thank you both, for kind words :)

J9D

Hello Marek, I have been struggling so much. Your description is easy to follow so thanks for that. I am getting the same problem as Martin. I get this message: “Confirm-MsolDomain : Unable to verify this domain because it is used elsewhere in Office 365. Remove the verified domain from the other service before adding it here.” I also checked and the TXT Record is set properly, so I have no clue, what is wrong :-(. Any help would be much appreciated.

Hans Vingerhoets

Same problem: Unable to verify this domain because it is used elsewhere in Office 365. Is there a solution?

Marcelo

Unable to verify this domain because it is used elsewhere in Office 365. Remove the verified domain from the other service before adding it here. Same issue ….

Marek

Hey guys, sorry for the delay. Unfortunately the PS only works on unverified/unmanaged directories, meaning if you get the message its used elsewhere you have to remove it from there, either access the other tenant yourself(if you have credentials) or with help of Office 365 support, which can help you recover access to he tenant.

Thank you for your reactions.

To submit comments, go to GitHub Discussions.

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