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Jonathan Rioux
Asked: 2012-12-18 08:44:41 +0800 CST

Exchange 2010 - Mailbox Export much larger than actual size

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I issue this command to export the mailbox of a user:

New-MailboxExportRequest -Mailbox "user" -FilePath "\\server\share\user.pst"

After 2 minutes or so, this file have been generated: enter image description here

Notice the size of the export file, and now this is the actual size of the mailbox on the server as seen from outlook:

enter image description here

Where does this extra ~100MB in the export file comes from?

windows-server-2008

3 Answers

  1. It is likely the additional items that are exported, such as the recoverable deleted items (dumpster).

    I would mount the .PST file in your outlook profile and check each folder to see exactly where the additional mail items are.

    A mailbox export will export EVERYTHING within the mailbox, including items that aren't viewable to the user.

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  2. I have found the reason.

    The export contains all the deleted and purged messages of the mailbox, even after the "Deleted Elements" have been emptied in outlook. So once I opened the archive into outlook, I saw all my emails that I have deleted and purged months ago.

    That's a good thing I learnt, thanks to you guys!

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  3. You can check using the below command:

    Get-MailboxStatistics | Format-List StorageLimitStatus,TotalItemSize,TotalDeletedItemSize,ItemCount,DeletedItemCount

    because Exported .pst includes deleted items.

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