Applies to: Exchange Server 2010 SP3, Exchange Server 2010 SP2

Topic Last Modified: 2011-03-19

When you delete a mailbox or disable a personal archive, the mailbox or archive is kept in the mailbox database for a specified period of time. When that time expires, the mailbox database maintenance permanently deletes the mailbox or personal archive. By default, mailbox databases are configured to retain mailboxes and personal archives for 30 days. Before the time expires, mailboxes and personal archives are in a disconnected state. You can reconnect them by associating them with an existing user.

For more information, see the following topics:

Looking for other management tasks related to mailboxes? Check out Managing User Mailboxes.

Use the Shell to configure deleted mailbox and disabled personal archive retention

You need to be assigned permissions before you can perform this procedure. To see what permissions you need, see the "Mailbox databases" entry in the Mailbox Permissions topic.

Note:
You can't use the EMC to configure deleted mailbox and disabled personal archive retention.

This example changes the mailbox retention to 45 days for the mailbox database MBX01.

Copy Code 
Set-MailboxDatabase -Identity MBX01 -MailboxRetention 45
Note:
To specify a value for the MailboxRetention parameter, enter it as a time span: dd.hh:mm:ss where d = days, h = hours, m = minutes, and s = seconds.

For detailed syntax and parameter information, see Set-MailboxDatabase.