Exchange 2003: Using the Mailbox Manager

One of the new features that was implemented in Exchange 2000 SP1 is the Mailbox Manager.  With the Mailbox Manager an Exchange Administrator has the ability to control the content of a user’s mailboxes.

Creating a Mailbox Manager Policy

1.       Open the Exchange System Manager.

2.       Navigate to the Recipient Policies container (Fig. 1).

Figure 1

      3.       Right click over Recipient Policies and select New > Recipient Policy.
      4.       In the New Policy dialogue box (Fig. 2), select Mailbox Manager Settings and click OK.

Figure 2

      5.       In the Properties dialogue box (Fig. 3), enter a meaningful name.
 

Here you can also apply a filter to the policy so that it only affects a subset of your users.  If you do not modify the filter it will apply to all users.

Figure 3

     

6. Click on the Mailbox Manager Settings tab (Fig.4).  It is here that we will set the criteria that a message must meet in order for the policy to process it. 

Figure 4

With the options in the When Processing a Mailbox: dropdown list, we have the ability to select what action you would like Exchange to take.  The options available to us are:

·          Generate Report Only

·          Move to Deleted Items Folder

·          Move to System Cleanup Folders

·          Delete Immediately

We then have the ability to specify the type of messages that this policy will effect, the age of the item and or the message size (the size the message must be over).

Our policy is going to be set to Move to System Cleanup, for Inbox and Sent Items older than 2 days (Fig. 5).

Figure 5

We want the user to be sent a mail notification of the action taken, so if we select the checkbox Send Notification Mail to User After Processing (Fig. 6), we can also customize the message that the user will see but clicking on the Message button (Fig. 7).

 

Figure 6
 

Figure 7

  

OK, so once we have set the options for our policy the next step is to configure when the server will actually process the policy.

7.       Right click on the server in Exchange System Manager and select Properties, select the Mailbox Management tab (Fig. 8)

Figure 8

From here we can select when the Mailbox Management Process will run, what level of reporting we would like to produce and who is designated as the administrator.

When selecting the schedule that you would like the Mailbox Management Process to use, the interval that you specify will directly impact the performance of your server.

That pretty much covers the Mailbox Manager in Exchange 2000, and this neat feature will give administrators the ability to control their user’s mailboxes.