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When I run this cmdlet, I get the following result:

Get-MailboxFolderStatistics user | ft FolderPath, FolderSize -autosize

FolderPath                    FolderSize
----------                    ----------
/Top of Information Store     156 B (156 bytes)  
/Calendar                     244.2 KB (250,025 bytes)  
/Contacts                     1.223 MB (1,282,252 bytes)  
/Contacts/SenderPhotoContacts 30.41 KB (31,139 bytes)  
/Conversation Action Settings 0 B (0 bytes)  
/Conversation History         206.2 KB (211,147 bytes)  
/Deleted Items                1.449 MB (1,519,602 bytes)  
/Drafts                       472 B (472 bytes)  
/Inbox                        618 MB (648,025,798 bytes)  
/Journal                      144 B (144 bytes)  
/Junk E-Mail                  131.9 KB (135,089 bytes)  
/News Feed                    0 B (0 bytes)  
/Notes                        1.847 KB (1,891 bytes)  
/Outbox                       0 B (0 bytes)  
/Quick Step Settings          0 B (0 bytes)  
/RSS Feeds                    0 B (0 bytes)  
/Sent Items                   6.754 KB (6,916 bytes)  
/Suggested Contacts           9.316 KB (9,540 bytes)  
/Sync Issues                  0 B (0 bytes)  
/Sync Issues/Conflicts        0 B (0 bytes)  
/Sync Issues/Local Failures   0 B (0 bytes)  
/Sync Issues/Server Failures  0 B (0 bytes)  
/Tasks                        7.994 KB (8,186 bytes)  
/Recoverable Items            12.16 MB (12,748,519 bytes)  
/Deletions                    0 B (0 bytes)  
/Purges                       0 B (0 bytes)  
/Versions                     0 B (0 bytes)

But when I open the mailbox using both Outlook and OWA, the deleted items folder is empty. I'm guessing it's corrupted or something like that. Is it possible to recover it somehow?

Thanks.

Ben Pilbrow
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Ken
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  • I've just ran a quick test (by all means not scientific, but a test regardless) on an Exchange 2010 VM I have. When I delete everything from my Deleted Items, the `Get-MailboxFolderStatistics` shows 0 items and 0 bytes, so you definitely have *something* a bit peculiar going on. – Ben Pilbrow Dec 22 '10 at 22:10
  • I've asked around for more information and I just got told that the user has been deleted from the Exchange, and someone recovered it from the disconnected mailbox to a different user. Can it have something to do with different GUID or something like that? – Ken Dec 23 '10 at 02:37

3 Answers3

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Have you tried reseting the server? at times it actually clears any uneeded files.

John Riselvato
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  • I don't have the permission to restart the server and if I asked for it, I'd have to give a solid reason to. – Ken Dec 23 '10 at 02:42
  • @John Riselvato this is quite clearly a server side issue. Restarting the client computer isnt going to help. – Zapto Mar 05 '12 at 12:03
  • @t1nt1n I know this. This was answered 2 years ago buddy. I fixed my answer, i did mean **reset the server** not the clients computer. – John Riselvato Mar 05 '12 at 13:50
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    @JohnRiselvato Thanks for editing. We sometimes have a clean up. As if someone googles this it will be wrong. But now they have the right info :) – Zapto Mar 05 '12 at 14:05
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Does Get-MailboxStatistics user | ft DeletedItemCount, TotalDeletedItemSize show you anything different (just out of curiosity really)?

As for reasons why you get this output, I have found there is a slight delay on the Get-MailboxStatistics and Get-MailboxFolderStatistics cmdlets so they might show stale data for a few minutes, but I am assuming because you've asked here that it's been longer than a few minutes.

Logical mailbox corruption is certainly possible, and Exchange provides a cmdlet to run a check on a mailbox. When you run this command it will disrupt the mailbox, so either do it while the user is not around or let them know their mailbox will be offline for a while.

Issue the command New-MailboxRepairRequest -Mailbox user -CorruptionType SearchFolder,AggregateCounts,ProvisionedFolder,FolderView -DetectOnly to run a check for logical mailbox corruption. If the cmdlet reports corruption, you can take out the -DetectOnly parameter to actually perform a mailbox repair. Please note that this is potentially a destructive operation (i.e it may delete items which are corrupted) so for good measures, you should always have a known good mailbox database backup handy just in case.

Ben Pilbrow
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  • Issuing the Get-MailboxStatistics gives me the following output: DeletedItemCount : 2617 TotalDeletedItemSize : 12.17 MB (12,756,497 bytes). I can't run the repair command since we haven't upgraded to SP1. Should I export the mailbox to a development server so I can run the command? But I think the corrupted data might not be exported. – Ken Dec 23 '10 at 02:21
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My guess is that what you are seeing is messages that have been hard deleted from the mailbox, but that are still in the Exchange database "dumpster". These would be the messages that you can recover (from Outlook) by selecting "recover deleted items" in the tools options. Those messages would still be associated with the mailbox, which is why you'd see them. Those messages are also the ones associated with the "keep deleted items for x days" in your Exchange database properties.

At least, that's how it was in Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2007.

user5870571
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Holocryptic
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  • I might be wrong on this, but I was under the impression hard deleted items went into the *Recoverable Items*, *Deletions* and *Purges* system folders. – Ben Pilbrow Dec 22 '10 at 19:40
  • @Ben, after looking at a couple articles, it looks like hard delete (shift-delete) has been renamed soft delete. Either that, or my terminology is WAY off (which has been known to happen). In either case, I still think that this is what he is seeing. – Holocryptic Dec 22 '10 at 19:51
  • @Ben, and you are right, they did re-architect the dumpster process in 2010 and that is where the deleted items go. Anyways, I found this link, maybe it will help someone. My brain hurts right now. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee364755.aspx – Holocryptic Dec 22 '10 at 19:59
  • @Holocryptic - see [this TechNet article](http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee364755.aspx) about deleted items. Everything deleted goes into one of the folders under *Recoverable Items*. – Ben Pilbrow Dec 22 '10 at 20:05
  • Heh you found the article I linked to while I was writing my comment :) – Ben Pilbrow Dec 22 '10 at 20:06
  • @Ben, yeah I did a quick look 'em up :) A possibility for what he is seeing are items that are in the purge folder, but haven't been wiped from the database yet. I don't have a 2010 Exchange box to play with or test, so I'm kinda flappin' in the breeze here.... – Holocryptic Dec 22 '10 at 20:09
  • I have recovered the ones using the "Recover Deleted Items" on Outlook. Those items were on the Deletions folder. How can I recover the ones in the purge folder? – Ken Dec 23 '10 at 02:34
  • @Ken, if you look at the link that Ben and I supplied, it mentions recoving items in the Purge folder that haven't met the deleted items retention period yet. – Holocryptic Dec 23 '10 at 14:28
  • @Holocryptic, I'm sorry, I was kinda lost for a moment. We don't have the single item recovery enabled. So it won't go to the purge folder, will it? – Ken Dec 23 '10 at 15:03
  • @Ken, honestly I'm not sure. I'm quickly reaching the limit of what I can offer you, as I don't have working knowledge of Exchange 2010. What I can suggest is to compare a couple of mailboxes and see if they all exhibit the same characteristics. From that point you might be able use process of elimination to figure out what is going on. I'm betting it still has something to do with the dumpster, I'm just not sure in what capacity or how to prove it. – Holocryptic Dec 23 '10 at 15:39
  • @Holycryptic, no worries. I'll try to compare it with the other mailboxes. Thanks for your suggestions. – Ken Dec 23 '10 at 16:13