You often need to manage mailboxes the way you do user
accounts. Some of the management tasks are intuitive and others aren't.
If you have questions, be sure to read the sections that follow.
You can work with multiple recipients at the same time. To select
multiple resources not in sequence, hold down the Ctrl key and then
click the left mouse button on each resource you want to select. To
select a series of resources, select the first resource, hold down the
Shift key, and then click the last resource.
The actions you can perform on multiple resources depend on the
types of recipients you've selected. Generally, you'll want to work
with recipients of the same type, such as either user mailboxes or room
mailboxes, but not both types at the same time. The actions you can
perform on multiple mailboxes include:
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Disable
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Disable Archive
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New Local Move Request
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New Remote Move Request
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Remove
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Send Mail
You also can edit the properties
of multiple recipients at the same time. To do this, select the
recipients you want to work with, right-click and then select
Properties. Just about any property that can be set for an individual
recipient can be set for multiple recipients.
Tip
If the Properties
option isn't available when you right-click, you've probably selected
one or more recipients of different types. For example, you might have
intended to select only user mailboxes but selected a room mailbox as
well.
Viewing Current Mailbox Size, Message Count, and Last Logon
You can use the Exchange Management
Console to view who last logged on to a mailbox, the last logon date
and time, the mailbox size, and the message count by completing these
steps:
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Expand the Recipient Configuration node and then select the Mailbox node.
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Double-click the mailbox with which you want to work.
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On the General tab, the Last Logged On By text box shows who last
logged on to the mailbox, and the Modified entry shows the date and
time the mailbox was last modified. (See Figure 1.)
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On the General tab, the Total Items and Size (KB) areas show the
number of messages in the mailbox and the current mailbox size in
kilobytes, respectively.
If you want to view similar information for all mailboxes on a server, the easiest way is to use the Get-MailboxStatistics cmdlet. Example 1 shows examples using this cmdlet. Use the –Archive parameter to return mailbox statistics for the archive mailbox associated with a specified mailbox.
Example 1. Getting statistics for multiple mailboxes
Syntax
Get-MailboxStatistics -Identity 'Identity' [-Archive <$true|$false>]
[-DomainContoller DomainController] [-IncludeMoveHistory <$true|$false>]
[-IncludeMoveReport <$true|$false>]
Get-MailboxStatistics -Server 'Server' | -Database 'Database'
[-DomainContoller DomainController]
Usage
Get-MailboxStatistics -Server 'corpsvr127'
Get-MailboxStatistics -Database 'Engineering Primary'
Get-MailboxStatistics -Identity 'cpandl\williams'
When you are working with the Exchange Management
Shell, the standard output won't necessarily provide all the
information you are looking for. Often, you need to format the output
as a list or table using Format-List or Format-Table,
respectively, to get the additional information you are looking for.
Format-List comes in handy when you are working with a small set of
resources or want to view all the properties
that are available. Once you know what properties are available for a
particular resource, you can format the output as a table to view
specific properties. For example, if you format the output of
Get-MailboxStatistics as a list, you see all the properties that are
available for mailboxes, as shown in this example and sample output:
get-mailboxstatistics -identity "cpandl\daniele" | format-list
AssociatedItemCount : 2655
DeletedItemCount : 121
DisconnectDate :
DisplayName : Daniel Escapa
ItemCount : 2451
LastLoggedOnUserAccount : NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM
LastLogoffTime : 6/15/2010 12:58:18 PM
LastLogonTime : 6/15/2010 12:58:14 PM
LegacyDN : /O=FIRST ORGANIZATION/OU=EXCHANGE
ADMINISTRATIVE GROUP/CN=RECIPIENTS/CN=DANIEL ESCAPA
MailboxGuid : d3f6ce55-fe3d-4beb-ae65-9c9f7edaf995c
ObjectClass : Mailbox
StorageLimitStatus : BelowLimit
TotalDeletedItemSize : 97 KB (97,235 bytes)
TotalItemSize : 1155.11 KB (1,155,445 bytes)
Database : Customer Service Primary
ServerName : CORPSERVER45
DatabaseName : Customer Service Primary
MoveHistory :
IsQuarantined : False
IsArchiveMailbox : False
Identity : d3f6ce44-fe0c-4beb-ae79-9c9f8eaf123c
MapiIdentity : d3f6ce44-fe0c-4beb-ae79-9c9f8eaf123c
OriginatingServer : corpserver45.cpandl.com
IsValid : True
Once you know the available properties,
you can format the output as a table to get exactly the information you
want to see. In this example, you get information about all the mailboxes in the Engineering Primary database and format the output as a table:
Get-MailboxStatistics -Database 'Engineering Primary' | format-table
DisplayName, TotalItemSize, TotalDeletedItemSize, Database, ServerName
Setting Alternate Mailbox Display Names for Multilanguage Environments
In some cases, the full display name for a mailbox won't be
available for display. This can happen when multiple language versions
of the Exchange snap-in are installed on the network or when multiple
language packs are installed on a system. Here, the system cannot
interpret some or all of the characters in the display name and, as a
result, doesn't show the display name. To correct this problem, you can
set an alternate display name using a different character set. For
example, you could use Cyrillic or Kanji characters instead of standard
ANSI characters.
You can set an alternate display name for a mailbox by following these steps:
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Open the Properties dialog box for the mailbox-enabled user account by double-clicking the user name in the Exchange Management Console.
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On the User Information tab, type the alternate display name in the Simple Display Name text box and then click OK.
Hiding Mailboxes from Address Lists
Occasionally, you might want to hide a mailbox so that it doesn't
appear in the global address list or other address lists. One reason
for doing this is if you have administrative mailboxes that you use
only for special purposes. To hide a mailbox from the address lists,
follow these steps:
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Open the Properties dialog box for the mailbox-enabled user account by double-clicking the user name in the Exchange Management Console.
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On the General tab, select the Hide From Exchange Address Lists check box and then click OK.
Defining Custom Mailbox Attributes for Address Lists
Address lists, such as the global address list, make it easier for
users and administrators to find available Exchange resources,
including users, contacts, distribution groups, and public folders. The
fields available for Exchange resources are based on the type of
resource. If you want to add more values that should be displayed or
searchable in address lists, such as an employee identification number,
you can assign these values as custom attributes.
Exchange provides 15 custom attributes—labeled Customer Attribute 1,
Custom Attribute 2, and so on through Custom Attribute 15. You can
assign a value to a custom attribute by completing the following steps:
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Open the Properties dialog box for the mailbox-enabled user account
by double-clicking the user name in the Exchange Management Console.
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On the General tab, click Custom Attributes. The Custom Attributes dialog box appears.
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Enter attribute values in the text boxes provided, and click OK twice.
