i have old Exchange 2010 and planing to migrate exchange 2013,  there is also Public Folder Database,

how  can i check if anyone uses this Public Folder Database? 

if no one uses it,  i don,t migrate public folder database to new server.

i have old Exchange 2010 and planing to migrate exchange 2013,  there is also Public Folder Database,

how  can i check if anyone uses this Public Folder Database? 

if no one uses it,  i don,t migrate public folder database to new server.

That can be difficult to determine,. "Using" a folder can mean so many things, and someone may not look at a folder except once a year when they need to. 

How many public folders do you have?

Aside from checking how much public folder data you currently have.  I hate to say "Ask your users" b\c I never great responses from them, but this is a case where you need to find out from them if they use Public Folders.

Hi Lasha Tsuladze

am agree with Andy David it's difficult to monitor public folder accessing, but you can also used third party tools like promodag (free 30 days) can provide a report that displays the count and size of messages sent and/or received by selected public folders during a given period.

http://www.promodag.com/downloads/documentation/quickstart_en.pdf

you can use public folder statistics 

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-GB/library/aa997949(v=exchg.150).aspx

inaddition

the common solutions for public folders:

1. Direct public folder migration  (http://exchangeserverpro.com/exchange-server-2010-2013-migration-moving-public-folders/)
2. Export public folders to PSTs and import in shared mailboxes 
3. Used site mailboxes (exchange 2013 only) (https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj150499%28v=exchg.150%29.aspx)

Thanks

Hi Lasha Tsuladze

am agree with Andy David it's difficult to monitor public folder accessing, but you can also used third party tools like promodag (free 30 days) can provide a report that displays the count and size of messages sent and/or received by selected public folders during a given period.

http://www.promodag.com/downloads/documentation/quickstart_en.pdf

you can use public folder statistics 

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-GB/library/aa997949(v=exchg.150).aspx

inaddition

the common solutions for public folders:

1. Direct public folder migration  (http://exchangeserverpro.com/exchange-server-2010-2013-migration-moving-public-folders/)
2. Export public folders to PSTs and import in shared mailboxes 
3. Used site mailboxes (exchange 2013 only) (https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj150499%28v=exchg.150%29.aspx)

Thanks

• Proposed as answer by David Wang_Microsoft contingent staff 22 hours 43 minutes ago

Hi Lasha Tsuladze

am agree with Andy David it's difficult to monitor public folder accessing, but you can also used third party tools like promodag (free 30 days) can provide a report that displays the count and size of messages sent and/or received by selected public folders during a given period.

http://www.promodag.com/downloads/documentation/quickstart_en.pdf

you can use public folder statistics 

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-GB/library/aa997949(v=exchg.150).aspx

inaddition

the common solutions for public folders:

1. Direct public folder migration  (http://exchangeserverpro.com/exchange-server-2010-2013-migration-moving-public-folders/)
2. Export public folders to PSTs and import in shared mailboxes 
3. Used site mailboxes (exchange 2013 only) (https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj150499%28v=exchg.150%29.aspx)

Thanks

• Proposed as answer by David Wang_Microsoft contingent staff Friday, May 29, 2015 8:43 AM

I always check in this fashion:

1.  Is the Folder Mail Enabled?  If Yes, check when the last message was delivered and if they are legit or spam

2.  Check permissions on the folder.  Clean up all the SIDs and then look for Owners of the folder and contact them to see if it is used.  If no owners, go to next step.

3.  Look at the documents in the folder to see if there are any recent ones.  If not then it is safe to archive the folder.  I will set all permissions to none and then move to a higher folder I created called Decomm.  If anyone yells, then I can move it to the original location pretty quick.

4.  After x days I will delete, knowing that I can recover if needed in the next 30 days.

Hi,

I agree with Andy and Abdelrahman. It is difficult to check if anyone uses this Public Folder Database.

To get additional information about the items within the public folder, such as subject, last modification time, creation time, attachments, message size, and the type of item.

Please run the following command: Get-PublicFolderItemStatistics -Identity "\publicfolderpath" | Format-List

I suggest you can migrate all users to exchange 2013 and let the users to use in a period of time trial. If no one reports some issues ,we can remove the public folders.

Please back up the public folder before removing them.

Regards,

David