Hi, System: I have an Exchange 2003 SP2 system. I have a user on the system which exceeded his mailbox size. He then deleted most of his emails (leaving only 50emails with no attachments). I then set the retention level of his deleted items to 0 days. On checking his mailbox the next day, the clean-up tool had run and there are no deleted items being retained by the system. However his mailbox size has still not changed in value (when checking on exchange's system manager). Any idea why the mailbox size has not reduced and how i can reduce it? Thanks

so you set the retention time to zero after deletion. you would need to make sure that "online maintainence" has run the the database online maintainence http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa996226(EXCHG.65).aspx Dhruv

Agree If Online maintenance doesn't run and completes (Event id 1221 application log) mailbox size will remain the same. Gulab | Skype: gulab.mallah

On Sun, 30 Jan 2011 11:17:07 +0000, Thomas Banner wrote: >I have a user on the system which exceeded his mailbox size. He then deleted most of his emails (leaving only 50emails with no attachments). How were the messages deleted? >I then set the retention level of his deleted items to 0 days. That works only for messages that show up in the "Recover Deleted Items" (check each folder, not just the "Deleted Items" folder). >On checking his mailbox the next day, the clean-up tool had run and there are no deleted items being retained by the system. However his mailbox size has still not changed in value (when checking on exchange's system manager). Any idea why the mailbox size has not reduced and how i can reduce it? Is the user working in cached mode? Do you see a different mailbox size at the client than the server? If you take the Outlook client out of cached mode do those deleted messages reappear? Do they appear if you use OWA to look at the mailbox? Maybe the problem is a damaged OST file? Assuming the messages are truely no longer in the "Recover Deleted Items" menu in any folser, and the messages aren't still in the "Deleted Items" folder, move the mailbox to a different database. It wouldn't be the 1st time I've seen the folder size and item counts showing incorrect values. Moving the mailbox or running "isinteg" usually fixes that. --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP

I agree with Rich. You should check whether the deleted items still exist on the certain folder first. If the items are removed completely from certain mailbox, we should consider at the mailbox database area. Besides moving the mailbox to another database, please also try to defragment with the Eseutil utility. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/192185/en-us Thanks. NovakPlease remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Thanks, I've checked and the deleted items are 0kb. The exchange cleanup tool has run. I've also logged onto the mailbox using owa and there are only 100 emails in the mailbox....yet the mailbox size is growing and reports 200mb. There are no attachments on the messages. The client is connecting via an IMAP connection - client software outlook express. Any other ideas. Thanks

Please move mailbox into other mailbox store and check it from outlook cacahe mode. Also, Enable recover deleted items in outlook for user and select "deleted item" folder then check recover deleted option in outlook. You must see some emails there if still you see bigger size. Anil

How many total size is the mailbox? I suggest you calculate the size of the all existed messages and the available free size, and check whether the size is equal to the total mailbox size. Thanks. NovakPlease remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.