Forum Discussion
Can't empty deleted items folder - Outlook 2016 / Exchange Online Plan 1
Hi Chris
Thanks for your reply and the suggested article which has certainly given me some useful notes for next time I have a problem
In the end as the mailbox is critical to our business (process incoming mail for a document management system), I logged a support call with Microsoft and a really helpful chap advised it was due to the 14 day retention policy on mailbox not working and used some powershell commands to get it working
So fingers crossed the 60000+ items in deleted items has now started to go down and 99% of my 50Gb used is now 85% so much improved
Thank you for your reply
Have you tried this via Powershell?
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/4467926b-af01-415d-85ac-72954521d4e8/user-cant-empty-deleted-items-folder
This organisation was having a similar issue of mail in the deleted items folder reappearing.
Let me know if this works. If not, we'll think of other ways.
Best, Chris
Hi Chris
Thanks for your reply and the suggested article which has certainly given me some useful notes for next time I have a problem
In the end as the mailbox is critical to our business (process incoming mail for a document management system), I logged a support call with Microsoft and a really helpful chap advised it was due to the 14 day retention policy on mailbox not working and used some powershell commands to get it working
So fingers crossed the 60000+ items in deleted items has now started to go down and 99% of my 50Gb used is now 85% so much improved
Thank you for your reply
Darren Rose Years later, 4 separate support tickets, multiple "I understand the frustration you are feeling" phone calls with support, and this is still an issue. Nothing works. I am, to be honest, dumbfounded by the simplicity of this request and the inability of the Great Monopoly Microsoft to comply with a simple "select," and "delete" command that would enable the removal of the trash and recoverable data.
jimbarrgpboston I completely agree, had the issue again recently and still such a pain, as you say it is not exactly a difficult request is it..
Why wasn't the retention policy working? Perhaps it was simply that the Managed Folder Assistant had skipped the mailbox for some reason (it uses a weekly workcycle) and the command used to get things going again was Start-ManagedFolderAssistant?
Unfortunately I don't know why it had stopped working, just know it must have done as inbox had four weeks of mail rather than the two weeks (14 days) it was supposed to contain and that was why it was hitting limit. Problem then got worse when I tried deleting loads of them manually, it wouldn't let me delete permanently so had to delete and put in deleted items, then I couldn't empty deleted items, so ended up over size limit and with bin not working/emptying
Using Start-ManageFolderAssistant then kicked it in to life (after purging RecoverableItems as well) and deleted folder went from 60000+ items (9gb+) to 0 items in about 6 hours
Thanks Darren, thanks for confirming. Really glad it's working. In that case, if you could mark it as the solution and then drop us a line if the issue is unresolved, or you have an issue elsewhere and we'll look straight into it. Had a great rest of the weekend.
Oh, in order to prevent it happening again, you can always turn the archive on the mailbox which is another 50Gb and put a retention policy that everything older than, say, a year, will go into the archive or delete. It may be a way of keeping the mailbox clear for the future.
Best, ChrisWill do - thanks again Chris
