How to Enable Message Tracking Center on a Server

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To log information about messages that are sent over your messaging system, you can use Message Tracking Center in Exchange Server. Message Tracking Center logs information about the sender, the mail message, and the message recipients. Specifically, you can review statistics such as the time the message was sent or received, the message size and priority, and the list of message recipients. You can also log the subject line of e-mail messages. Message Tracking Center searches for all types of messages, including system messages, public folder messages, and e-mail messages.

You must enable Message Tracking Center on each server for which you want to track messages. When enabled, all messages that are routed through a server are added to the message tracking logs.

Before You Begin

Before you perform the procedure in this topic, read Troubleshooting Mail Flow and SMTP.

The following permissions are required to perform this procedure:

  • Member of the local administrators group and a member of a group that has had the Exchange Administrators role applied at the administrative group level

Procedure

To enable Message Tracking Center on a server

  1. In Exchange System Manager, expand Servers, right-click the server on which you want to enable message tracking, and then click Properties.

  2. On the General tab, select the Enable message tracking check box.

  3. To record the subject of any message sent to, from, or through the server, select the Enable subject logging and display check box.

    Note

    Enabling subject logging causes some performance degradation.

  4. Under Log file maintenance, you can prevent the removal of log files or modify the length of time that the log files are kept. The default period that tracking logs are kept is seven days.

    Note

    On servers that process large quantities of mail, the tracking logs grow quickly. Ensure that you have adequate disk space for the log files and for other services or applications that use this disk.

  5. Click OK or Apply. You do not need to restart services for this change to take effect.

For More Information

For more information about how to use Message Tracking Center, see Microsoft Knowledge Base article 262162, "XADM: Using the Message Tracking Center to Track a Message."