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deleting specific messages from multiple mailboxes

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deleting specific messages from multiple mailboxes - 29.Sep.2008 7:58:59 PM

robroth

Posts: 47
Joined: 26.Feb.2006
Status: offline

Today it hit the fan. An application blew up at 2am last night and generated over 500,000 mail messages which clogged up everything for the entire day. I just now got finished cleaning up most of the mess so at least the server was usable again. The only remaining fallout is approximately 80,000 error messages got through and were delivered to about a dozen people (most of whom only use OWA). I would like to be able to mass delete all emails from a specific address from all mailboxes. I'm wondering what the best way to go about doing this is? I can probably do it with exmerge but is there a better way with 2007 and Powershell?

Thanks

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RE: deleting specific messages from multiple mailboxes - 30.Sep.2008 12:04:13 AM

robroth

Posts: 47
Joined: 26.Feb.2006
Status: offline

well, i went to follow the instructions here to use exmerge:
http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/MF013.html

and ran into the dapi.dll error. I downloaded exmerge from microsoft's website and it says it's for exchange 5, 2000 and 2003, version 06.05.7529 dated 8/3/05. I think that's the most recent. I put the two files in the \program files\microsoft\exchange server\bin directory. I've googled and all I can find are references saying that if you get the dapi.dll error, you must have the wrong version of exmerge, but I don't believe that's the case. So... I'm stumped. I hate to have to tell everyone in the AM that they'll have to delete 80,000 email messages via OWA, 100 at a time .... actually, there are a few individuals I wouldn't hate saying that to at all now that I think about it :).

(in reply to robroth)

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RE: deleting specific messages from multiple mailboxes - 30.Sep.2008 2:27:43 AM

rick_d

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Joined: 25.Sep.2008
Status: offline

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb266964(EXCHG.80).aspx has some good information about the export-mailbox cmdlet. Judging by that article you could remove messages from mailboxes based on specific criteria.

Here is one example from the technet library...

To find and delete items from a group of mailboxes, such as all mailboxes on a database, run the following command:

Get-Mailbox -Database DB1 | Export-Mailbox -SubjectKeywords "Virus message" -DeleteContent

You should be able to try this on one user first to make sure it works

Get-Mailbox -Identity username | Export-Mailbox -SubjectKeywords "Virus message" -DeleteContent

Please have a good backup before running them just in case. Hope this helps.

< Message edited by rick_d -- 30.Sep.2008 2:54:32 AM >

(in reply to robroth)

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