How to remove (purge) Disconnected Mailboxes

If in the Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 we delete mailbox users by selecting the Remove or Disable, mailboxes and their contents are still stored in the Exchange database.

The difference between the operation Remove and Disable:

  • Disable – disconnects the mailbox from email were the user account in Active Directory, leaving the user account enabled, as indicated in the Disconnected mailboxes list, disappears from the address book and it can be reconnected by going in for EMC: Exchange Organization -> Recipient Configuration -> Disconnect Mailboxes
  • Remove – removes the user account in Active Directory with mailbox

If you want to see a list of disconnected mailboxes in specified Exchange databasethen use the command:

Get-MailboxStatistics -Database "MailboxDatabase" | Where { $_.DisconnectDate -ne $null } | select DisplayName, DisconnectDate,TotalItemSize, TotalDeletedItemSize

to show all disconnected mailboxes in specified mailbox server:

Get-MailboxStatistics -Server MBXServer | where { $_.DisconnectDate -ne $null } | select DisplayName,DisconnectDate | sort DisconnectDate

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