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Remove a Mailbox Database

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Applies to: Exchange Server 2010 SP3, Exchange Server 2010 SP2

You can use the Exchange Management Console or the Shell to remove a mailbox database.

Looking for other management tasks related to mailbox databases? Check out Managing Mailbox Databases.

What Do You Want to Do?

  • Use the EMC to remove a mailbox database

  • Use the Shell to remove a mailbox database

Use the EMC to remove a mailbox database

You need to be assigned permissions before you can perform this procedure. To see what permissions you need, see the "Database permissions" entry in the Mailbox Permissions topic.

  1. In the console tree, navigate to Organization Configuration > Mailbox.

  2. In the work pane, expand the mailbox database you want to remove.

  3. In the action pane, click Remove.

  4. A warning appears asking if you're sure you want to remove the mailbox database. Click Yes.

  5. When the dialog box appears stating that the database was removed successfully, note the location of the Exchange database (.edb) file. If you want to remove this file from the hard drive, you must remove it manually. Click OK.

Use the Shell to remove a mailbox database

You need to be assigned permissions before you can perform this procedure. To see what permissions you need, see the "Database permissions" entry in the Mailbox Permissions topic.

This example uses the Remove-MailboxDatabase command to remove the database MyDatabase.

Remove-MailboxDatabase -Identity "MyDatabase"

  1. When you are prompted about whether you're sure that you want to perform the action, type Y.

  2. When the dialog box appears stating that the database was removed successfully, note the location of the Exchange database (.edb) file. If you want to remove this file from the hard drive, you must remove it manually.

For detailed syntax and parameter information, see Remove-MailboxDatabase.

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