We have Exchange 2003 SP2 running in a Win2003 domain.Recently we have been getting messages that our license limit of 75 GB is being reached. We need to reduce the size of our database and soon.Presently we have not limits set on our mailboxes or public folders. Exchange has the defaults for keeping deleted emails 7 days and delected mailboxes 30 days.Before I make changes I want to insue that I understand the delection process used by Outlook 2003 and Exchange 2003. It is my understanding that when a user deletes an email the email goes into the Outlook deletion folder that is part of the users mailbox, i.e. the emails in the deletion folder count in the mailbox's total size. When the user cleans out the deletion folder then, in our case, Exchange keeps the email for 7 days before marking it for deletion. During this seven days the email can be recovered.Is the above correct or is there something I do not understand?

Pretty much:http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/MF022.htmlDont forget hard deletes as well:http://support.microsoft.com/kb/246153

You are right. How ever you will not be able to shrink the size of the database. When ever you delete emails from a mail box or delete a mail box, it just creates white space in the DB and that will nto reduce the size of the database. You need to run offline defrag to shrink the database size.You can run eseutil /ms to check how much white space is there in the DB.You need to run eseutil /d command to run the defrag on the DB. Also , be infomred that defragginfg the DB will habe down time (4-5 Gb/Hour)Raj

Yes, but the important thing to remember there with the changes in Exch 2003 Sp2, the database size on disk doesnt count as the size of the database anymore, its the logical size of the store that is measured.http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa998066(EXCHG.65).aspxSize check done against the database now uses logical database size. Empty or white space in the database does not count against the configured database size limit; therefore, no offline defragmenting is required for recovery exceeding the configured or licensed database limits.