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Yes, that is by design. The only way to free up disk space used by the database files is to do an offline defrag using eseutil.
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Yes, that is by design. The only way to free up disk space used by the database files is to do an offline defrag using eseutil.

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Another way instead of using offline defrags is to move the mailboxes to another mailbox database and then delete the old database. &nbsp;Advantage of doing it this way instead of the offline defrags is that it aviods long periods of downtime.<br />
Also, make sure you backup your exchange database on a regular basis. &nbsp;This commits transactions to the database and flushes the logs. &nbsp;A full or an incremental backup of the exchange database will do this.
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Another way instead of using offline defrags is to move the mailboxes to another mailbox database and then delete the old database.  Advantage of doing it this way instead of the offline defrags is that it aviods long periods of downtime.
Also, make sure you backup your exchange database on a regular basis.  This commits transactions to the database and flushes the logs.  A full or an incremental backup of the exchange database will do this.

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Hello,<br />
<br />
I am trying to free up some space on my Exchange 2003 server and when I delete old mailboxes, it does not appear to be freeing up any space. Is this by design? Is there a way to recover the space manually?<br />
<br />
Thank-you
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Hello,

I am trying to free up some space on my Exchange 2003 server and when I delete old mailboxes, it does not appear to be freeing up any space. Is this by design? Is there a way to recover the space manually?

Thank-you

Exchange 2003

Within Internet message handling services (MHS), a message transfer agent or mail transfer agent (MTA) or mail relay is software that transfers electronic mail messages from one computer to another using a client–server application architecture. A MTA implements both the client (sending) and server (receiving) portions of the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). The terms mail server, mail exchanger, and MX host may also refer to a computer performing the MTA function. The Domain Name System (DNS) associates a mail server to a domain with mail exchanger (MX) resource records containing the domain name of a host providing MTA services.