How do you delete emails from the system mailbox?

[Peach66]

Using Exchange 2000, when checking mailbox sizes with System Manager, I noticed that the system mailbox has over 1,000 items. How do I access this mailbox and remove the items?

 

[Davetoo]

You don't. Leave the system mailbox alone.

I'm Certifiable, not certified.
It just means my answers are from experience, not a book.

 

[DarkHat]

On my side I tried from teh m: drive into de mbx folder but it's look it's not working.... I'm stck on the problem... If I find something I let you know...

 

[Davetoo]

Well, since you guys are so hell bent on doing something you shouldn't, here, have at it, just be sure to ignore that statement at the end that tells you not to alter anything in this mailbox:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;253784

I'm sure you'll be posting here shortly on how to recover your Exchange server after you've deleted items from the system mailbox.

I'm Certifiable, not certified.
It just means my answers are from experience, not a book.

 

[Peach66]

Thanks for the info. Doesn't look like I'm going to touch the system mailbox. I was curious why it has 1,000+ items. I was just looking at making some space on my server. Do you have experience doing a manual defrag? Do you recommend it?

 

[Davetoo]

I haven't done any defrags, but I don't think it's a big deal. Search this forum for it and you'll find several threads about it. I recall one not too long ago, this month I believe.

I'm Certifiable, not certified.
It just means my answers are from experience, not a book.

 

[lanamater]

You can do an offline defrag with ESEUTIL /d

Stop the information store you want to defrag and from the Exchsrvr\bin folder at the command line launch "eseutil /d database name". This can take a while depending on your db size. After complete you can run it again with the switch for integrity check to verify the db. Size can be reduced 20-40%.

You can do ESEUTIL ? for options. Keep in mind you MUST have at lease double the size of the database size in free space because it creates a temporary database while defragging. So if your exchsrvr/bin folder is on C: you may want to copy it to another drive-or you will have to specify where the temp db will be located.