Applies to: Exchange Server 2010 SP3, Exchange Server 2010 SP2
Topic Last Modified: 2011-03-19
When you use the Remove-StoreMailbox cmdlet to purge a disconnected mailbox and all its contents from the mailbox database, the data loss is permanent. There are two types of disconnected mailboxes: soft-deleted and disabled. When running the cmdlet, you must specify one of these types. If the type you specify doesn't match the actual type of the disconnected mailbox, the command fails.
To learn more about disconnected mailboxes, see Understanding Disconnected Mailboxes.
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| You can run the Remove-StoreMailbox cmdlet only against disconnected mailboxes. If you attempt to run the cmdlet against an active mailbox, the cmdlet fails, and an error is returned. For details about how to permanently delete an active mailbox, see "Use the Shell to permanently remove a mailbox" in Remove a Mailbox. |
Looking for other management tasks related to disconnected mailboxes? Check out Managing Disconnected Mailboxes.
Use the Shell to permanently delete a disconnected mailbox
You need to be assigned permissions before you can perform this procedure. To see what permissions you need, see the "Disconnected mailboxes" entry in the Mailbox Permissions topic.
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| You can't use the EMC to permanently delete a disconnected mailbox. |
This example permanently deletes the soft-deleted mailbox for Ayla from mailbox database MBD01.
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Remove-StoreMailbox -Database MBD01 -Identity Ayla -MailboxState SoftDeleted |
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This example permanently deletes all soft-deleted mailboxes from mailbox database MBD01.
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Get-MailboxStatistics -Database MBD01 | where {$_.DisconnectReason -eq "SoftDeleted"} | foreach {Remove-StoreMailbox -Database $_.database -Identity $_.mailboxguid -MailboxState SoftDeleted}
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This example permanently deletes the disabled mailbox with the GUID 2ab32ce3-fae1-4402-9489-c67e3ae173d3 from mailbox database MBD01.
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Remove-StoreMailbox -Database MBD01 -Identity "2ab32ce3-fae1-4402-9489-c67e3ae173d3" -MailboxState Disabled |
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For detailed syntax and parameter information, see Remove-StoreMailbox and Get-MailboxStatistics.