How to Delete a Mailbox From Exchange Server?

Read time 6 minutes

Sometimes, there may exist two similar mailboxes in the same Exchange Database. Generally, one of them is used and the other remains unused, and you can remove the unwanted mailbox with the help of remove-mailbox cmdlet. One thing which you must keep in mind is that if you delete of mailbox from the Exchange database, then the user information is also deleted from the Active Directory. So, if you want to remove only the user mailbox, then you need to disable the mailbox.

Here is the brief procedure of disabling the user mailbox from the Exchange database:

1. Log in to the Exchange Admin Center with the Administrator credentials.
2. Under recipients, go to mailboxes, select the user mailbox to be disabled, click more (•••) and click Disable.
   
3. A warning message will appear. Click Yes.
   
4. The user mailbox will disappear from the list; and after the expiry of the retention period, the mailbox will be deleted permanently.
   

Use Exchange Management Shell to Disable a Mailbox

You can disable a mailbox using Exchange PowerShell command:

When you run the command, it will ask you confirm your action. After confirmation, it will delete the mailbox.

In the Exchange environment, it is possible that some useful mailboxes may get deleted accidentally. There are some inbuilt methods in the Exchange Server which can bring the deleted data back. Alternately, you can take the assistance of a professional tool which can handle both healthy and corrupt Exchange and save its data to a secure location or another platform. This tool is also helpful in backing up the mailboxes before deleting them form the Exchange database.

Exchange Recovery is an efficient tool which removes every kind of corruption from the Exchange database and brings back each mailbox along with all its content. Here is the simple procedure of using the Kernel for Exchange Server –

1. Run the software and click the Offline EDB option.
   
2. Select the first option of Offline EDB file and click the Next button.
   
3. Browse the EDB file from its location. If you are unaware of its location, then use the search button. After selecting the file, click Next.
   
4. Select among Standard Scan or Deep Scan mode. Click Next.
   
5. The EDB file is successfully added as the source file. Click Finish.
   
6. After selecting the source EDB file, you can get the preview of any mailbox item with the help of the Preview button on the right. After checking the preview, click the PST file option on the destination pane.
   
7. Select the option of Create new PST File. Then click Next.
   
8. Provide a location and a name to the PST file. Then click Next.
   
9. A new PST file is successfully created and selected as the destination.
   
10. Now you can easily either copy-paste or drag-&-drop the messages from source EDB to the destination PST.
    
11. After exporting the data, the tool provides a message containing complete export details.
    
12. After exporting, you can see the messages in the destination folder.
    

Conclusion

Handling unwanted mailboxes in the database can be quite stressful for an Exchange Administrator. Such mailboxes can be deleted without removing the user account. Before deleting, you can back up its data to a PST file using Exchange mailbox recovery tool which is completely easy to use. Any non-technical person can conduct the whole recovery and export EDB to PST file within minutes.

Watch Video: To know Complete Process of Exchange Server Recovery Tool