How to Disable Outbound Mail for All SMTP Queues

 

The Disable Outbound Mail option allows you to disable outbound mail from all SMTP queues. For example, this can be useful if a virus is active in your organization.

Note

The Disable Outbound Mail option does not disable the MTA or System queues.

Procedure

To disable outbound mail for all SMTP queues

1. Start Exchange System Manager: Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Microsoft Exchange, and then click System Manager.

2. Navigate to Queue Viewer by performing one of the following steps:

   • If you do not have routing or administrative groups defined: Expand Servers, expand the server you want, and then click Queues.

   • If you have administrative groups defined: Expand Administrative Groups, expand <Administrative Group Name>, expand Servers, expand the server you want, and then click Queues.

3. In the details pane, click Disable Outbound Mail to disable mail from all SMTP queues.

4. A warning message appears asking Are you sure you want to disable outbound mail? Click Yes. Outbound mail is now disabled for all queues.

5. To re-enable SMTP queues that have been disabled, click Enable Outbound Mail, and then click Yes.

   Note

   If you want to prevent outbound mail from being sent to a specific remote queue instead of disabling all SMTP queues, you can freeze the messages in that queue. To freeze all the messages in a particular queue, right-click the queue, and then click Freeze. To unfreeze the queue, right-click the queue, and then click Unfreeze.