In Exchange 2007, the Recipient Configuration node and its child nodes (Mailbox, Distribution Group, Mail Contact, Disconnected Mailbox) of the Exchange Management Console (console) are used for recipient management. By default, up to 1000 recipients in the current domain are displayed in the result pane of the Recipient Configuration node and its child nodes. For organizations with more than 1000 recipients, 1000 recipients have to be displayed by default while they may not be the specific set of recipients that you want to manage, and you may not want to wait until they are displayed. This article gives a few tips to manage and speed up the console view.
Tip#1: Scope the recipients to be displayed to a specific domain or OU level
You can control the scope of recipients shown to a domain or OU by using the "Modify Recipient Scope" context menu of the Recipient Configuration node. Narrowing down the recipient scope improves performance as it reduces the scope to query specific recipients and the number of recipients to display in the console. This also improves manageability if you use a domain or OU-based organizational design. The scope set at this top level applies to the recipient objects of the Recipient Configuration node and also its child nodes Mailbox, Distribution Group and Mail Contact.
Tip#2: Set a smaller maximum number of recipients to display
You can set the maximum number of recipients to display to a smaller value than the default value 1000 using the "Modify the Maximum Number of Recipients to Display" context menu of the Recipient Configuration and its child nodes Mailbox, Distribution Group and Mail Contact to reduce the number of recipients to display in the result pane. This takes less time to load recipients, but it only works if your scoped and/or filtered recipients have fewer results than this smaller maximum number of recipients to display. Or else, you'll have to enlarge this maximum number to load all intentional recipients.
Tip#3: Save a filter as a default filter for a result pane
A filter is used to display specific recipients that you want to manage. You can save a filter as a default filter for a result pane by accessing the "View" menu and then the "Save Current Filter as Default" context menu of the Recipient Configuration node or its child nodes. Each time you go to the Recipient Configuration node or its child nodes, the default filter is applied to display a specific set of recipients.
This tip also applies to the Server Configuration node and its child nodes (Mailbox, Client Access, Hub Transport and Unified Messaging), whose result panes have filter settings.
Tip#4: Click the "Stop Loading" button to stop the display of recipients
When the result pane is displaying recipients, there is a "Stop Loading" button available on top-right side of the result pane. You can click it to stop of the display of recipients instead of waiting for the load to finish. Press "F5" or click the "Refresh" context menu of the Recipient Configuration node or its child node to restart loading the recipients.
Queue Viewer
Queue Viewer contains Queues and Messages tabs and a result pane for each tab with filter settings. The list of queues and messages in Queue Viewer can be very large, depending on the current mail flow. Unlike the display of recipients in the console, queues and messages are displayed in Queue Viewer using multiple pages with each page displaying 1000 queues or messages by default.
The above Tip#2 and Tip#3 can be applied to Queue View similarly to speed up the display of queues and messages:
- Change the number of queues or messages displayed on each page of Queues and Messages tabs by using the "View" menu, then "Options" submenu and the "Number of items to display on each page" field.
- You can create a filter to display the specific set of queues or messages that you want to monitor and save it as default of the Messages or Queues result pane by using the "View" and then "Save Current Filter as Default" context menu of the result pane.
- Jared (Ji-Chao) Zhang
