There are many reasons as to why you must delete a Microsoft Exchange mailbox. No matter what your reason may be, there are several dedicated steps you must take to ensure the mailbox database is completely deleted and disabled to prevent messages from being received, but not read due to mailbox inactivity. While the actual database for a mailbox remains “alive” for 30 days after the mailbox has been deleted, the database will be automatically deleted after this retention period, which is also referred to as being purged.
The Difference Between Deleting and Disabling
Before delving into the steps necessary to delete a mailbox, it’s essential to understand the difference between deleting a mailbox or simply disabling it. When you delete a mailbox, you’re completely removing the attributes assigned to Exchange and the Active Directory for that specific user account. When you disable a mailbox, the account stays “active,” but cannot send or receive new messages.
There are also five different mailboxes that are assigned to each user account. Because of how the exchange is set up, you can delete four out of the five mailboxes while the fifth can only be disabled. These mailboxes include:
- User Mailbox – May be deleted and disabled
- Shared Mailbox – May be deleted and disabled
- Resource Mailbox – Cannot be disabled, but can be deleted
- Linked Mailbox – May be deleted and disabled
- Archive Mailbox – May be disabled, is not recommended to be deleted unless the primary mailbox is deleted. Archive mailbox is deleted after the 30 day retention period.
Deleting User Mailbox
There are two ways you may delete an Exchange user mailbox. These include:
- Using the EAC – To delete a mailbox using the EAC, navigate to the “Recipients” folder and select “Mailboxes.” Next, you’ll find a list of user mailboxes. Select the mailbox you wish to permanently delete. Once selected, click “Delete.” Upon clicking, a dialogue box will ask to confirm this action. Select “Yes” to permanently delete the a user mailbox. To determine whether or not this action worked, return to the EAC and click “Recipients.” Navigate to the page that showcases all current user accounts. Review this list to determine whether or not the account was deleted. Keep in mind that Exchange is a web application, and if you’re looking to monitor any aspect of your email server/OWA web app, you can use a free tool like Everystepautomation (located at https://everystep-automation.com) to make sure that you don’t have any errors in the process.
- Using Shell – To delete a mailbox using Shell, you’re required to key specific commands into the system. Key, “Remove-Mailbox <identity>” Replace <identity> with the username of the account you wish to delete. For example, “Remove-Mailbox john@johndoecompany.com” To determine whether or not this process worked, run the following command, “Get-User <identity>”. For example, “Get-User john@johndoecompany.com”.
Microsoft Exchange Monitoring 