What would you like to see in Mailbox Manager in future versions of Exchange?
Published May 05 2004 09:43 PM 1,198 Views

We're looking for some feedback on the mailbox manager feature, in three parts:

#1: If you use it today, why - what scenarios do you use it for? For example, to reduce mailbox size to reduce backup time, to keep users under a certain SLA mailbox size, corporate retention policies, etc... just tell us any details you're willing to share on how and why you use it today.

#2: What does it do today that you like?

#3: What does it not do today, that you'd like to see it do in the future? Especially for those of you who don't use it today, is there some change we could make to it that would make you want to use it?

Please add your feedback to the comments of this entry. Thanks in advance,

- KC Lemson

19 Comments
Not applicable
I would like to see if moved out of recipient policies and maybe into its own space in esm.
Another request I get all the time is who is being skipped etc, I know it is easy to do a ldap search... but what if you could right click a user in dsa and select mailbox manager settings and choose from a policy to apply or see what is applied to that user...my two cents

Jon G

Fannie Mae
Not applicable
Using the Exchange 2003 Mailbox Manager I haven't found a way to manage a user mailbox and delete email for a non system folder only. I know I can do it by selecting the check box to include sub folders but I only want to limit a specific sub folder and not the Parent.
The spam filter I am using creates additional folders; a main SPAM folder that resides on the same hierarchal level as the user's Inbox and then 3 sub folders. The folder I am most interested in using the Mailbox Manager for is one of these sub folders.So to summarize it would be cool if it can traverse sub folders.

Not applicable
Why can't you have multiplie policies apply to the same account? For example I use one policy to empty the deleted items every night. And I'd like another policy (or the same policy that is flexible enough) to report messages over 50mb.

It would also be nice if you could specify any specific folder by name. Instead of just the standard folders and then the "All Folders" entry.

And I'd like to be able to purge deleted items from IMAP users accounts.
Not applicable
I would love to see the Mailbox Manager be able to remove messages based on their read/unread status. We would like to be able to purge student mailboxes based on age and whether the message is unread or not.
Not applicable
I would like to see Mailbox Manager become more granular in it's application. For example to start the process on a specific mailbox, the store or storage group vs. the whole server.
Not applicable
Avility to customize messages sent to users regarding size limits / full mailbox / cannot send mail etc - our management feels they are rather harsh and would like to personalize them to our company and policies.
Not applicable
I miss the "Clean Mailbox" feature from 5.5. The Mailbox Manager is similar, but it would be really nice to be able to fire off an on-demand mailbox purge. We're still using EX2K, so if that's in 2K3, feel free to ignore my suggestion.
Not applicable
I agree with the previous person that something similar to Clean Mailbox would be great. We have faculty that may be off for a half year and want their mail purged when they return. Also would like a easy way to exclude someone from mailbox manager.
Not applicable
I'd like to be able to exclude a specific folder or message class by name. For example, I'd like to clean out my inbox, but have it ignore voice mail messages from Cisco Unity. Or, I'd like to move my voicemails into a folder and have all folders cleaned but that one.

Agree that being able to fire a specific policy against a selected mailbox(es) on an ad-hoc basis would be good.
Not applicable
I'd like to apply the policy based on membership in a group. I spread out users so that an entire line of business or executives are not on the same server to limit my risk. I'd like to be able to have a stricter policy on some groups than others. Also, apply the policy to the entire mailbox and exempt or apply a different policy to certain non-standard folders like Archive. If the user needs to retain e-mail or I have an archival solution that leaves a pointer, I need to prevent mailbox manager from purging that e-mail.
Not applicable
Hi,
We use it reduce and control mailbox size. It's currently set up to run once a week. I would like to see Mailbox Manager in it's own space, similar to the way it was in 5.5. It seemed much easier to use then. It was also easier to exclude mailboxes, schedule run times. It would be nice if one could schedule different events for different parts of a mailbox (i.e. empty the Deleted items folder every Wednesday at 10, empty Sent Items every Monday and Friday, etc).
Not applicable
We do not currently use it because we are not allowed to permenantly delete anything. If it had the ability to export items to some kind of file system (PST or better), then we would start using it today.

Basically it boils down to the fact that we do too much legacy work and can never afford to throw anything away. Right now we are stuck with PST files using the autoarchive, huge mailboxes or huge public folders. None of these solutions are really valid for us.

We have tried dragging these out to a file folder, but explorer does not understand email message (you can't see sender information, etc) and it doesn't deal with duplicates properly (when dragging messages our of Outlook into an Explorer Window).

If we could add something in to Windows and tell it a folder is an "EMail" folder, then we could have the mailbox manager export all of the old, large, obsolete, etc messages out to the file server as .msg files (with a GUID in the file name so they are all unique). Windows Explorer would recognize the contents of the window (either automatically or because we told it to) as email message and it would display subject, sender, date/time sent, etc, rather than the normal information.

This should be fairly easy to do. It would be a HUGE benefit to us and make the mailbox manager a much more powerful tool. The messages would still look like messages, they would maintain the same folder structure they did inside of Outlook/Exchange, but it would take the burden off the exchange server.
Not applicable
I would like the audit process to be able to notify users of what would be deleted, rather than just to notify administrators.

Also, to be able to selectively use the date field of choice for message expulsion (like just Received Date, not the combination of Received, Modified, etc.). Thanks.
Not applicable
Would like to see the ability to purge just unread messages over a certain age.
Not applicable
Delete messages based on subject (regardless of class)

One ex.: Delete all Undeliverables from the postmaster account on a daily basis.
Not applicable
Search mailboxes with duplicate proxy address /LegacyExchangeDN . Also control Exchange services with ESM also with a click all exchange services can be brought to stop /start/restart instead of services console .

Policy based Mailbox rights assignment like view only admin in ESM .
Not applicable
Force autoarchive on clients reaching mailbox size limit
Not applicable
this is more of a bug report because it did not function this way in 5.5...

when MM runs and did not take any action based on the policy, it still sends the SA notifcation to the user.

in 5.5, if MM runs on a mailbox but did not move any messages it does not send the user a message to say it did nothing.

my users don't like this one bit.

thanks -
Not applicable
Thanks everyone for the feedback, we're passing it on to the owners, so feel free to keep adding comments.
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‎Jul 01 2019 02:56 PM
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