Hello All: Server is running Exchange 2003 SP2 as part of SBS2003. We have several public folders where we have set Age limits on the messages in the folder that we want deleted. I just noticed that our database had really grown and realized that messages older than the age limit are NOT being deleted. I see that the Cleanup/Defrag utility runs fine each night, but these older messages still remain in the folders. Oddly, when I look at the Public Folder Instances under Server >> First Storage Group >> Public Folders >> Public Folder Instances the "Remove Older Than" field column is correctly populated. I did find another thread in here about using MFCMAPI to look at values on the individual messages, but those all seem to be correct. I'm wondering where to go from here. Is there any way to "Force" a cleanup of these older items? Is there a way to monitor it? I've been hunting on the web and just haven't found too much that relates specifically to this issue. It seems that in most cases, Exchange successfully "obeys" the age limit settings. Thanks!

Oh...forgot to add....we have NO replication policies running on any public folders on this server. With only (1) Exchange server, this isn't a necessity, so I don't think there's any conflict there. There are also no System Policies in place on the folders.

Hi, Please follow these steps to troubleshoot this problem: 1. Create a new public folder. 2. Under Server-> First Storage Group-> Public Folders, right click Public Folders, in Limits tab, uncheck the box "Age limit for all folders in this store (days):" 3. Under Server-> First Storage Group-> Public Folders -> Public Folder Instances, right click this new public folder and click Folder Properties. Uncheck the box "Use public store defaults". set the age limit to 1 day, 4. Run services.msc and restart Microsoft Exchange Information Store service when it's possible. Then test to see if messages in this new public folder can be deleted after one day. If it works, I recommend you set the age limit for the specific public folder.

The Test folder worked perfectly fine. I also have the other folders setup the exact same way. For example, one folder should keep messages for only 365 days (1yr), but has messages in there from 2006. I can't figure out why those older messages aren't being automatically deleted, though.

No one has arrived at a solution for this?