Link to home
Start Free TrialLog in
Avatar of jkockler
jkocklerFlag for United States of America

asked on

MS Exchange mailbox maintenance

Greetings,

  If an Outlook user downloads mail via pop3, and Outlook is not configured to keep a copy of the message on the server, how long does it take for Exchange 2003 to remove the mail from the user's  mailbox?

 I disabled Outlook keeping a copy of the message on the server today, but I noticed Exchange still shows the same amount of email in the user's mailbox through Exchange System Manager.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Avatar of Alan Hardisty
Alan Hardisty
Flag of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland image

Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
If you download emails through POP3, the messages are deleted from the e-mail server by default after they are downloaded.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook-help/leave-e-mail-messages-on-your-e-mail-server-HA001150793.aspx

look the configuration once again, and try downloading ensuring that the sync is complete and no errors.

-Praveen
Avatar of jkockler

ASKER

Yes the sync is complete, and Outlook is configured not to keep a copy on the server. Yet the mailbox message count is not decreasing in Exchange System Manager. I believe alanhardisty is correct with the mailstore retention setting. My system is set for 30 days. I have Outlook set to clear messages now because Outlook was duplicating downloads, and would randomly download the entire message store, even though the messages were already downloaded previously. Searching around I found that Outlook has had quite a history with this problem, and it is linked to the "keep a message on server" option.
if the download fails from completing the download, the messages are not removed from the server.

look at this post http://www.cibd.com/Support/EmailMultipleMessages.htm

This discusses some common issues with POP3 downloads. This can even happen if you have a corrupted item on your inbox, which is preventing from the succesful sync.

Follow the steps mentioned in the article, that should resolve your issue.

-Praveen