Set Folder Limits

Mailbox Manager examines the contents of every folder selected for a mailbox recipient policy. Within each folder, it processes all messages that exceed the policy's age limit, size limit, or both.

Age and size limits work together in Mailbox Manager. By default, both age (30 days) and size (1,024 kilobytes) limits are applied to every folder. A message must exceed both limits before Mailbox Manager will delete or move it. Under the default settings, then, a 1,000 KB message will never be deleted, no matter how old it is.

Note   How overage and oversized messages are processed depends on the option chosen in the When processing a mailbox drop-down list.

You can use the same limits for every folder the mailbox recipient policy applies to, or set custom limits on a folder-by-folder basis. Each folder must be configured individually if you want to use limits different from the default limits.

To set folder limits:

1. Start System Manager
   On the Start menu, point to Programs, point to Microsoft Exchange, and then click System Manager.
2. In the console tree, double-click Recipients, and then click Recipient Policies.
3. In the details pane, right-click the recipient policy you want to modify, and then click Properties.
4. To set age or size limits on a folder, on the Mailbox Manager Settings (Policy) tab, select the folder, and then click Edit.
5. In Folder Retention Settings, both the Age Limit (Days) and Message Size (KB) check boxes are selected by default. Click to clear one or both check boxes. If the check box is cleared, that limit will not apply to the folder. Clearing the Message Size (KB) check box will cause Mailbox Manager to evaulate messages only by age.
6. To change the number of days a message may be retained in a mailbox folder before Mailbox Manager removes it, click to select the Age Limit (Days) check box, and then type in the new limit. A limit of 0 days will cause Mailbox Manager to process messages as soon as they exceed the size limit.

7. Note   When Mailbox Manager begins processing mailboxes, it records the start time of the run as the Time Basis for the run. All message age calculations are made relative to this fixed Time Basis value, which means that, even if Mailbox Manager takes several days to complete processing, the ages for all items would be computed against the same Time Basis value. The age of a message is computed from the following message properties: when the message was sent (PR_CLIENT_SUBMIT_TIME), when the message was delivered (PR_MESSAGE_DELIVERY_TIME), and when the message was last modified (PR_LAST_MODIFICATION_TIME). All three of these values must exceed the age limit before Mailbox Manager will take appropriate action on a message.

8. To change the size limit of retained messages, click to select the Message Size (KB) check box, and then type in the new limit. A limit of 0 kilobytes will cause Mailbox Manager to process messages as soon as they exceed the age limit.
9. Click OK to close Folder Retention Settings.

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