Hi everyone. Weird one here.

Using Exchange 2010, not 2013.

When we open our global address list, there is an entry that looks like a Public Folder contact that isn't valid any longer. The little symbol next to the name is a manilla envelope with a white envelope on it . The new valid group has the same name and many people choose the incorrect one causing basically a waste of time. LOL. Anyway, I scoured Exchange lists and public folders looking for this thing and for the life of me cannot find it to remove it. Any thoughts where to check that I may have not checked yet?

I need to get this entry out of the address list!

Thanks!

 a public folder contact in the default offline address list that is invalid and I cannot find it to remove it from Exchange

It's not elegant but it should work.

Get-PublicFolder -ResultSize unlimited -Recurse | Get-PublicFolderItemStatistics | where { $_.ItemType  -eq "IPM.Contact"} |  fl >c:\pflist.txt

search the text file for the contact and you will have the path to it.

thanks Scott I will try it.

I did manually go to each public folder both in Outlook and in EMC and still couldn't find anything. I hope this will work.

I will let you know.

The results did not have what I was looking for. I am not sure it captured all public folder items either as the file was still missing some other items I still DO see in the PFs. Any other thoughts?

Hi,

Generally, the mail-Enabled public folder would be shown in GAL for client user. If you can't find this mail-enabled public folder in Exchange server, the public folder might have been removed from your Exchange server.

Please open the GAL in Outlook Online mode to confirm whether this public folder is visible in Address Book or not. If it is visible there, please double confirm this public folder has been removed in Public Folder Management Console. Then create a new GAL in server side to have a try.

If the issue doesn't happen in Online mode, the issue shoud be related to OAB sync and download for Outlook Cached mode. Please recreate the Outlook profile to redownload the OAB to have a try.

Regards,

Hello thanks for the suggestion. I opened Outlook in online mode and still see this phantom public folder contact in the GAL. I look in the PFMC and cannot find it in there. I have a replica that I am going to search next. I filter on Mail Enabled folders and open each one and viewed the email addresses and nothing matches.

When you say recreate a new GAL, how will I do that? I can look that up. Also when you say to recreate the outlook profile, what do you mean? My outlook profile?

Thank you Winnie!

Hi,

You can try to create a new GAL to check if it still contains the invalid entry.

Please refer to this example creates a GAL named GAL_Contoso that includes recipients who are mailbox users and have their company listed as Contoso.

New-GlobalAddressList -Name "GAL_Contoso" -IncludedRecipients MailboxUsers -ConditionalCompany Contoso

For more detailed information, please refer to: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb232063(v=exchg.150).aspx  

Best Regards,

David