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Hi,
I'm an exchange admin and I want to delete some items in a public folder, because the public folder mailbox limit is exceeded. After deletion, the usage is still the same, this is because deleted items are only marked as "hidden" and "deleted" an remain still in the mailbox.
How can I delete those items permanently to get more free space? My try was to set the property RetainDeletedItemsFor to 0 (after I've set the parameter UseDatabaseRetentionDefaults to false), but after a few days the usage is still the same. What did I do wrong?
Thanks in advance!
Do a shift delete on the messages to sent them to dumpster.
Then verify that the RetainDeletedItemsFor is set to 0 ( Sounds like it already is)
Give a night or two to clear that
BUT: If the PF mailbox quota has been reached and you don't want to raise it then consider moving some public folders to another PF mailbox.
Hi @Yuki Sun-MSFT ,
yeah I know I've exceeded the supported limit, that's the main reason why I've posted my question. This behaviour is hard to explain to a user which cleans up his public folder and only see the the limit in outlook client. I do not want to create another public folder mailbox, the user should delete his trash :-)
Thanks for your help!
Best Regards
Mario
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Hi @MarioL ,
What's the version of your Exchange server?
After deletion, the usage is still the same
Do you mean after deleting some items from the public folder, the mailbox usage of the public folder mailbox didn't change when checking via EAC?
Based on my knowledge and test, normally the deleted items won't take up the quota of the mailbox itself. It takes up the recoverable items quota of the mailbox instead.
Given this, could you please check the folder size using the powershell below and see if it has changed?
Get-PublicFolderStatistics -Identity <PublicFolderIdParameter> | Format-List *size*, *count*
And verify the current mailbox quota set for the mailbox using:
Get-Mailbox -PublicFolder <PublicFolderName> | FL *quota*
Besides, in case your concern is indeed about the recoverable items quota, please try the following steps and check the result:
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Hi @MarioL ,
I am writing to see how things are going with this issue. Feel free to post back if you would like further assistance on this.
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Hi @Yuki Sun-MSFT ,
our current exchange server version is Version 15.1 (Build 1979.3).
Today I've compared the usage of the public folder on my outlook client with EAC. On the client I get a usage which is about 14 GB less than I can see in the EAC.
I run following command to get the usage of each folder under my public folder root folder:
Get-PublicFolder -Identity "XXX" -Recurse | Get-PublicFolderStatistics | select Name,FolderPath,@{name="TotalDeletedItemSize (MB)"; expression={[math]::Round(($.TotalDeletedItemSize.ToString().Split("(")[1].Split(" ")[0].Replace(",","")/1MB),2)}},@{name="TotalItemSize (MB)"; expression={[math]::Round(($.TotalItemSize.ToString().Split("(")[1].Split(" ")[0].Replace(",","")/1MB),2)}}
The sum of the single folders (TotalDeletedItemSize + TotalItemSize) is the same as I can see on my outlook client. So where are the missing 14 GB?
Best Regards
Mario
Hi @MarioL ,
Today I've compared the usage of the public folder on my outlook client with EAC.
Did you check the usage in Outlook by right clicking Public Folders > Data File Properties > Folder size? If this is the case, that is the size of the public folders(rather than the public folder mailbox), and as you mentioned, it's the same as what we get using the Get-PublicFolderStatistics cmdlet.
Regarding the usage in EAC, did you checked via the Public Folder Mailbox tab?
That is the size of the public folder mailbox, which is expected to be a little larger than the public folder size. We can also check it using the following cmdlet:
Get-Mailbox –PublicFolder | Get-MailboxStatistics | ft DisplayName,TotalItemSize -AutoSize
But 14GB of difference in size doesn't seem normal. Do you have multiple public folders in the same public folder mailbox?
Hi @Yuki Sun-MSFT ,
the usage which is shown in EAC and with powershell cmdlet is the same, only in outlook client there is a lower usage. Why is there such a great gap?
Best Regards
Mario
Hi @MarioL ,
the usage which is shown in EAC and with powershell cmdlet is the same
Would you please clarify if you are referring to the following cmdlet here?
Get-Mailbox –PublicFolder | Get-MailboxStatistics | ft DisplayName,TotalItemSize -AutoSize
As mentioned in my reply earlier, this is the size of the public folder Mailbox, which is expected to be the same as what we see in EAC.
With regards to your concern about the lower usage in Outlook client, did you check it via Data File Properties > Folder size? Or you can remove any privacy information involved and then share a screenshot of it. From what I know, that is the size of the public folder itself, rather than the entire public folder mailbox. Considering that 14GB is indeed a great gap, I'd like to suggest checking if the public folder mailbox has more than one public folders in it.
Hi @Yuki Sun-MSFT ,
here is the output from powershell:
here from outlook:
There are several public folders in the PF-mailbox, but everything under one single root folder. I thought there would be other public folders with the same pf-mailbox as content mailbox, but it is not.
Best Regards
Mario
Thanks @MarioL for sharing the screenshots. From the output, the size of the public folder mailbox is 120.6GB and the size of the public folders is around 106.5GB. Considering that the public folder is quit large in size, from my point of view it might make sense that the gap between the public folder and its mailbox is as large as 14GB.
Public folder mailboxes contain the hierarchy information plus the content for public folders, which results in the fact that the size of the mailbox is larger than the total size of the public folders within it. And per my understanding, the gap between them could get larger with the increase of the subfolders and contents.
I've just tried in my test lab and as shown in the image below, the public folder mailbox is 72.1KB while the size of the public folder is 63KB, which is only 87.4% the size of the mailbox.
Hi @Yuki Sun-MSFT ,
thanks for your answer. You mean that hierarchy information is 14 GB large? For my understanding, I thought hiearchy information has same size as the public folder mailbox primary hierarchy. Is there a powershell cmdlet to illustrate occupancy of hierarchy information?
Best Regards
Mario
Hi Mario,
Based on my knowledge and research, I am afraid there is no powershell cmdlet available to retrieve the occupancy of hierachy information.
By the way, according to Limits for public folders, "although public folder mailbox size can exceed 100 GB, it is not officially supported." so as mentioned earlier by Andy, it's highly recommended to move some of the public folders to new Public folder mailboxes.
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Hi @Yuki Sun-MSFT ,
after the parameter RetainDeletedItemsFor (30) of mailbox database has reached (public folder mailbox has a limit of 1) , the limits in Powershell/EAC and Outlook are identical. Therefore deleted items must have an effect on mailbox size. How can I clean up this space manually before the limit of 30 days is reached?
