Hello,

An AD user account linked to a mailbox was deleted several months back.  I was wondering where can I verify the retention period for a mailbox before it gets purged after the AD user has been deleted?

I've looked into Retention Policies but I am not sure they are being used since there are no mailboxes linked to the policies.

Thank you,

Jeannette

Check if mailbox has its own retention policy or it is using DB settings:

Get-Mailbox -Identity mailboxname | select database,UseDatabaseRetentionDefaults,RetainDeletedItemsFor

Check database retention policy and maintenance schedule:

Get-MailboxDatabase DBNAME | select name,DeletedItemRetention,MaintenanceSchedule

Use this https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj863440(v=exchg.150).aspx if you need permanently remove the mailbox.

• Edited by Slava Fedenko 9 hours 39 minutes ago

Hello,

An AD user account linked to a mailbox was deleted several months back.  I was wondering where can I verify the retention period for a mailbox before it gets purged after the AD user has been deleted?

---- You can check this using Get-MailboxDatabase DBNameHere | Select Name, MailboxRetention 

MailboxRetention is by default 30 days if you haven't change it.

I've looked into Retention Policies but I am not sure they are being used since there are no mailboxes linked to the policies.

---- There are some of the retention policies created by default during setup (eg. Default Archive and Retention Policy) but it won't be assigned to any user by default, that you need to do manually...

Thank you,

Jeannette

Check if mailbox has its own retention policy or it is using DB settings:

Get-Mailbox -Identity mailboxname | select database,UseDatabaseRetentionDefaults,RetainDeletedItemsFor

Check database retention policy and maintenance schedule:

Get-MailboxDatabase DBNAME | select name,DeletedItemRetention,MaintenanceSchedule

Use this https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj863440(v=exchg.150).aspx if you need permanently remove the mailbox.

• Edited by Slava Fedenko Wednesday, July 15, 2015 9:48 PM

Hi,

If you delete a mailbox, it is disconnected for a default period of 30 days, so we can reconnect it during that time. 

After the specified mailbox retention period, a disconnected archive mailbox is purged from the Exchange mailbox database.

We can use the below command to retrieve the retention policy for Morriss mailbox:

Get-Mailbox Morris | Select RetentionPolicy

For more detailed information, please refer to the following link:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb232039(v=exchg.150).aspx

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd298052%28v=exchg.150%29.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396

Regards,

David

Hi Slava,

Checking database retention and maintenance schedule through the second cmdlet worked beautifully.  The first cmdlet is what gave me some trouble.  

Initially, I tried pasting the cmdlet and replacing the db name using { databse name},  but i got an error message stating "The operation couldn't be performed because the object 'database name' couldn't be found in AD server.

So i tweaked it a bit to the following:

Get-MailboxDatabase {database name} | select database,UseDatabaseRetentionDefaults,RetainDeletedItemsFor

The cmdlet ran and return empty database, UseDatabaseDefaults, and RetainDeletedItemsFor columns.  Any thoughts?  Or is this correct