Browsing Mailbox Databases in Exchange 2007 and 2010

Comments

1. 

   new2IT 28 Jul 2021 Reply

   Proxy-SI cringe

2. 

   Richard Darling 22 Jun 2018 Reply

   Works eveytime, and gives user and mailbox size:

   Get-MailboxStatistics -Server ‘SW-EXCH’ | where {$_.ObjectClass -eq “Mailbox”} | Sort-Object TotalItemSize -Descending | ft @{label=”User”;expression={$_.DisplayName}},@{label=”Total Size (MB)”;expression={$_.TotalItemSize.Value.ToMB()}} -auto >> “c:\mailbox_size.txt”

3. 

   Rob Pelletier 8 Mar 2018 Reply

   Couldn’t get the command to work – “Pipelines cannot be executed concurrently”.
   The one offered by “Proxy-Si” worked, but there were a bunch of columns that I didn’t need, so I had to go thru the CSV file and clean up. Not sure where the time-saving everybody raves about kicks in…

   I don’t hate Powershell, but I am annoyed that there doesn’t seem to be a consistent and complete source of information on it. A list of commands is available anywhere (including in Powershell itself), but a complete listing of the various switches, options, and output syntax is not available anywhere that I’ve been able to find. It’s a long painstaking process trying to figure out how to make it do what you want.

   If I worked in a large company with enough staff to allow us the luxury of having someone sit around half the time figuring all this stuff out, I’d use it more. As it is, if it weren’t for sites like this one, with folks able to take the time to learn this very complicated and poorly documented scripting language (and willing to share), I’d likely never use it.

   Life’s too short.

   Thanks to Paul (and his readers), I can find it and use it. But I likely will never learn it…

4. 

   Frankly Benson 27 Jan 2017 Reply

   Didn’t work. Not sure if Microsoft changed something or if it is one of those (many) PowerShell is screwed up things. But my output for the Get-MailboxStatistics only shows item count. It does not show database size as your example output. The only way I see to get the actual size is Get-MailboxStatistics -identity ” | fl.

   Boooo for PowerShell. Sorry, just how I feel.

5. 

   sanju 19 Jan 2016 Reply

   Amazing.. helped me a lot

6. 

   TTom 12 Nov 2015 Reply

   Thanks for your support!
   Finally, how to add to the database list the size of databases?

7. 

   Sérgio Tivane 7 Jul 2015 Reply

   Hi Paul,

   Thanks very much for your priceless support, you´re a star!

   Your articles never let me down.

   Keep it up sharing your valuable knowledge.

   Cheers

8. 

   Proxy-SI- 25 Mar 2015 Reply

   To those “NEW” IT Admin’s/Technicians out there who complain about Powershell and having to take on a new learning curve please shut up and stop complaining.

   After 10 years i can honestly say i have not stopped taking on new challenges, learning new technologies, new tools that make my life easier. Before Powershell and EXCHANGE i was using Oracle Solaris and a simple mail server which has pop, imap and smtp. Everything was done via a CLI. I still prefer this as it has more functionality, more options than these GUI products contain.

   Serious the new generation of IT are like script kiddies out there whom need someone to code the program in a way they can do everything in 1 or 2 clicks of the mouse. Embarassing.

   This script works very well actually;
   I have found that:

   Get-MailboxDatabase | Get-MailboxStatistics | Sort totalitemsize -desc | Export-CSV C:mailboxes.csv

   Works Quite Well for those whom need to create some report for their higher up or senior in regards to mailbox size management. It works in Exchange 2010 SP1, 2, and 3. Works in Server 2012 R2 as well as previous 2012 and 2008 R2. If you can’t get this command to work your exchange server has more problems than you can imagine and maybe you should be looking in eventvwr or any other tools you have for monitoring and managing the server.

   Just wanted to write this up because every time i enter a forum where someone posts a working script there are a bunch of amateur IT folks who try to claim it doesn’t work for them. It isn’t the script, its the person who doesn’t know what they are doing but decide to do it anyways not knowing the consequences, these are the SAME IT Folks who reduce the number of permanent position jobs out there because they *FUCK* up the previous job so the employer does contract work only thereafter.

   Thank you,

   Proxy-Si-
   (IRC User – Botnet 50K Class approaching 75K – Well known IT Administrator in Toronto)

9. 

   shad khan 16 Mar 2015 Reply

   G8T work very wll.

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13. 

    LoneWolf 23 Apr 2014 Reply

    Is there a way to perform mailbox browsing (or better yet, multi-mailbox searching) on a recovery database versus the live mailbox database?

14. 

    Abhishek Gupta 27 Mar 2014 Reply

    Hello,

    Above ItemCount and ItemSize include hidden NON_IPM_DATA mesages count .
    How can exclude hidden NON_IPM_DATA mesages from ItemCount .
    While We run Get-MailboxStatistisc & Get-MailboxFolderStatistics.

    Please give me a solution . Its urgent Which is required for my current project.

15. 

    Ersin 19 Mar 2014 Reply

    Thank you 🙂

16. 

    Mohammed Ahmed 10 Jan 2014 Reply

    Paul,

    Firstly I would like to mention that I am a BIG FAN

    Secondly, you have changed the way I Google issues or information (I am always adding up “PAUL CUNNINGHAM” at the end of any Exchange Server related Search)

    Thank You 🙂

    1. 

       Paul Cunningham 10 Jan 2014 Reply

       Thank you for the feedback. Glad you’re find the site useful.

17. 

    Danny 19 Dec 2013 Reply

    Great article, thanks, I was looking through your site and have not seen articles outlining how to take this Exchange PS script and make it a re-occuring time process. Can you please point me to an article? Thank you.

18. 

    Tim 13 Dec 2013 Reply

    Hi Paul, this is the perfect article to get me familiar with the Exchange Powershell and getting some useful info from my Exchange DB. I came here because a user was getting an auto generated e-mail stating that his mailbox was “almost full” and gave him a maximum and current size. I have bought some time by asking him to remove large attachments to e-mails but I am rather stumped by my output csv with the three database quota columns saying unlimited….so what is generating the message?

    Thanks

    1. 

       Paul Cunningham 13 Dec 2013 Reply

       The quota settings on the database will be inherited by any mailbox in that database that is set to inherit quota settings.

       A mailbox can be configured with it’s own quota settings, that override those set on the database.

       So in your case you should look at the properties of the mailbox itself, and examine the storage quotas that are configured for that specific mailbox.

       1. 

          Tim 17 Dec 2013 Reply

          Thanks, Paul. So I now need to figure out how to get the individual mailbox details.

          1. 

             Paul Cunningham 17 Dec 2013 Reply

             Get-Mailbox cmdlet will show you. Or just look at the mailbox properties in the Exchange Management Console.

19. 

    Imrn 8 Jul 2013 Reply

    Hey please dear tell me a command how to get a specific mailbox database name.

    1. 

       Paul Cunningham 8 Jul 2013 Reply

       Get-MailboxDatabase “Database Name”

20. 

    Mario Canchis 6 May 2013 Reply

    Hei Paul

    I´ve got a few questions, which i would like to help me solving:

    Here windows 2k3 exc 2k7 sp1
    get-mailboxstatistics | ft displayname,lastlogontime,storagelimitstatus,servername,{$_.TotalItemSize.Value.ToMB()}

    How can i add the PrimarySmtpAddress to be listed using the ps?
    Besides when export to a txt file; i get the short view, i mean dislpay name: Mario Can…. but not full field for any (storagelimitsstatus servername lastlogontime..etc)

    I would like to use “| Export-Csv c:test.csv” using the command shown before does not work; but it does in the next command

    Get-Mailbox -ResultSize Unlimited |Select-Object DisplayName,ServerName,PrimarySmtpAddress, @{Name=“EmailAddresses”;Expression={$_.EmailAddresses |Where-Object {$_.PrefixString -ceq “smtp”} | ForEach-Object {$_.SmtpAddress}}} | Export-Csv c:mailbox_alias1.csv

    Thanks for any advice you can give and specially for your time.

    Regards

21. 

    DK 13 Apr 2013 Reply

    I get this error, can’t go any further

    PS C:\> Get-MailboxDatabase
    The term ‘Get-MailboxDatabase’ is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. C
    heck the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again.
    At line:1 char:20
    + Get-MailboxDatabase <<<<
    + CategoryInfo : ObjectNotFound: (Get-MailboxDatabase:String) [], CommandNotFoundException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException

    1. 

       Paul Cunningham 13 Apr 2013 Reply

       Run it from the Exchange Management Shell.

22. 

    Joe 24 Oct 2012 Reply

    Paul, I noticed in your one PS command that the output showed GB, MB and bytes in () witout using any expressions. The best I am able to do is @{expression={$_.totalitemsize.value.ToMB()};label=”Size(MB)”} which would show MB rounded off (no decimal). How did you achieve this?

    1. 

       Paul Cunningham 25 Oct 2012 Reply

       I did it using the command shown in the example. That is the standard output.

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24. 

    Faisal Khan 26 Jun 2012 Reply

    all worked first time! Nice article.

    How can we reduce the result set of get-mailboxstatistics command as you did with get-mailbox command useing resultsize. i just want to get only top 30 users e.g. and i have noticed that resultsize does not work with get-mailboxstatistics command.

    1. 

       Paul Cunningham 27 Jun 2012 Reply

       Hi Faisal, I wrote an answer to your question here:

       https://www.practical365.com/powershell-tip-get-list-top-exchange-server-mailboxes-size

       Hope that helps.

       1. 

          Vignesh 8 Jul 2012 Reply

          Hi Paul, Do you have a PS script to send this info as email?

          Thanks
          Vignesh

       2. 

          Paul Cunningham 9 Jul 2012 Reply

          There’s a short series of articles here that walks you through sending emails from scripts:

          https://www.practical365.com/powershell-how-to-send-email

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26. 

    johnson 14 Nov 2011 Reply

    Very very understandable… Nice and good keep it up

27. 

    Richard 22 Jul 2011 Reply

    This works great! Worked the first time! I have different deparments on one database. After the export, I can sort by name, but I cannot get it to include the LDAP field “department”. This would help me GREATLY if I could export and sort by department to send out to the groups to clean up their mailboxes.

    THANKS!

    1. 

       Paul Cunningham 28 Jul 2011 Reply

       Sounds like you’ll need to knock up a script to combine the two pieces of data into one report 🙂

28. 

    Cyrys 13 Jun 2011 Reply

    Very Great Script, it Worked Like Charm

29. 

    Julian Milano 9 Feb 2011 Reply

    I agree with Dan. What? Can’t the Exchange GUI run the Powershell commands here to create an easily accessible data output?

    I have to now store all my scripts in text files and recall them when I need them then I have to modify the scripts and see what result I get.

    I do love the 80s, but……………………

    1. 

       Paul Cunningham 9 Feb 2011 Reply

       Hi Julian, I’ve been running a lot of these scripts lately as I work on migration planning. Personally it doesn’t bother me, I like being able to kick off the script and find a nicely formatted CSV file at the end. I get it that not everyone sees it that way.

       The capability is probably there (though the exact steps are beyond me right now) to automate the process such that it collects this data on a scheduled basis and makes it available in a graphical report that you can look at when needed. I’m sure if you dug around some of the PowerShell dedicates blogs and websites you’d see some useful tips along those lines.

       1. 

          Steve 5 May 2012 Reply

          Yep.. I’ve got 26000 users spread across 5 servers and 104 databases, and I get daily reports on user counts on each server, which servers are filling up, what mailboxes are new each day, how many users have excessive mail counts in the “critical” folders, when each database was last backed up, etc.. all through powershell, delivered to me in email daily. Powershell is AWESOME. You can even build GUIs in PS if you do need something interactive with pull-down menus and pushbuttons.

          1. 

             Mark Sprague 9 Sep 2014 Reply

             that’s awesome why don’t you share a few of them ……… really I am serious. Thanks in advance

30. 

    dan 13 Nov 2010 Reply

    “As you can see although it may seem less intuitive than the previous method of browsing through a GUI the Exchange Management Shell actually makes it much simpler and easier to gather information about the mailboxes in your organization”
    You’ve got to be kidding? We’re now back in the 1980’s days of DOS, CPM and UNIX shell scripting. MS is not helping the everyday SMB sys admin, we’ve really got other things to do than figuring out cryptic scripts.
    Nice work on the actual tutorial, well written and informative, keep it up. 🙂

    1. 

       Steve 5 May 2012 Reply

       “We’re now back in the 1980′s days of DOS, CPM and UNIX shell scripting. MS is not helping the everyday SMB sys admin”

       You mean they’re not doing anything for the system admin who hasn’t learned anything since the ’80s.. The truth is, if you’re running a mail server for 50 people, you’re right – you might not get as much bang for the buck in learning Powershell, and a GUI is more your style, but then again, those small companies are probably migrating to GMAIL or Office365 and hiring a college student to manage it with the web GUI… If you’ve got a large enterprise of 25000 mailboxes, and you are tired of having to point and click at everything all day, and want to automate the mundane tasks, you’ll be MUCH BETTER OFF if you spend a day or so learning EXACTLY those commands described in this post, and learn to leverage them. There are SO MANY things you can do, from automating mailbox moves, doing reports, etc. that you could NEVER do in the old GUI. Besides – Microsoft has given a HUGE opening for someone to come behind (see Quest tools) to write a GUI front end management tool that would far exceed what Microsoft would have written in the first place.

       1. 

          Wayne 4 Apr 2014 Reply

          I would politely and respectfully disagree. As a direct and immediately pertinent example, the output generated by the scripts above can produce so much chaff that in turn must be sifted through to arrive at a meaningful report, it makes the process cumbersome and tedious. In contrast, gleaning information from previous versions was as simple as taking a glance.
          Additionally, in the past there were much easier (aka quicker) ways of managing mailboxes and queues – provided as yet another example, it was much easier in earlier versions to free up a mailbox/queue by identifying and removing individual problems (e.g. incorrectly formed and/or corrupted emails).
          With each iteration of Exchange, we see less ease-of-use, and more scattered controls that don’t really help admins – they only seem to obfuscate and intentionally complicate day to day processes.
          I think for most admins, the opinion is that going back to CLI is definitely NOT an advantage for any product – it is a major step backwards, sorry.
          I will say however, that the work presented here is of great benefit for those of us who must endeavor to put up with these unfortunate changes.

          1. 

             Frankly Benson 27 Jan 2017 Reply

             I’m one of those 80’s folks, so have always been very comfortable with scripting. I also have to disagree on Powershell being an advance. It is lousy! Syntax is not consistent. Commands are more likely to be “not recognized” than to actually work, because of the way modules are loaded in and out. Generating simple information requires piping so many different commands together it is ridiculous.

             Nice try by Microsoft, but they need to scrap it and start again. Take a hint old scripting languages to get it right. And while they are at it, why not keep the GUI full-functional and also provide solid scripting capability?

       2. 

          Amanda Byrne 20 Aug 2014 Reply

          Yes, this is a huge back step, and just explains that much more how ineffective and inefficient Exchange has become. Seriously, displaying mailbox size is pretty basic. We are one of those smaller organizations that you say are “probably going to gmail”. We can’t because of some of the features in Exchange that we utilize. Quite frankly given the IT needs of our organization, I don’t have time to migrate OR learn Exchange Powershell GUI.

          It’s ludicrous for any product to come out with a new version that is more cumbersome, more resource-heavy, but less functional.

          1. 

             Paul Cunningham 20 Aug 2014 Reply

             If features in Exchange are important to your business, but you also want less management overhead, then Office 365 is something you should take a serious look at.

             Other than that, I can only recommend looking at PowerShell as a tool to make your entire IT administration life more efficient (across all Microsoft products – Windows, Windows Server, Exchange, SQL, Lync, Active Directory, Azure, etc etc) and embrace it for the benefits it can provide to you, rather than reject it because of the initial learning curve.

          2. 

             Amanda Byrne 21 Aug 2014 Reply

             It still doesn’t change that mailbox size is very basic, necessary information, and this is important functionality that was removed in a new version of the software.

             In my defense, my job IS mostly tackling learning curves, and I’m good at it. But you have to prioritize which learning curves to take on, and it really stinks when you have to tackle a new learning curve just to get functionality you had before.

             1. 

                Paul Cunningham 21 Aug 2014

                In Exchange 2007/2010/2013 you can still open the properties of a mailbox and see the size info.

                I guess what you’re talking about here is that persistent view of the mailbox sizes when you’re viewing a list of mailboxes in Exchange 2003? Collecting that info adds load to servers. Anything that adds load decreases performance. When you’re talking about software that needs to run well at enormous scale then every minor performance hit you can mitigate is a good thing.

                So just as you need to prioritize things, so do software vendors. This is useful but minor functionality that is still available to us, just not in a way that is detrimental to server performance. We can always write ourselves scripts to save time typing out long-ish commands. Like this one:

                https://www.practical365.com/powershell-script-create-mailbox-size-report-exchange-server-2010/

31. 

    Scott K Swan 28 Sep 2010 Reply

    Tried your method to create a .csv for excel, but it does not work for me (Server-W2K8R2, Exch 2010 – Workstation-WinXP Pro SP3, Excel 2007). I even copied and pasted your line, changing only the database number and the drive to write the file to. Below is a partial of what I get. Strangely enough, it works when I display it. This would be a useful tool for one of my reports, if I can get it to work.

    #TYPE Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.Internal.Format.FormatStartData
    ClassId2e4f51ef21dd47e99d3c952918aff9cd pageHeaderEntry pageFooterEntry autosizeInfo shapeInfo groupingEntry
    033ecb2bc07a4d43b5ef94ed5a35d280 Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.Internal.Format.TableHeaderInfo
    9e210fe47d09416682b841769c78b8a3
    27c87ef9bbda4f709f6b4002fa4af63c
    27c87ef9bbda4f709f6b4002fa4af63c
    27c87ef9bbda4f709f6b4002fa4af63c <(followed by about 40 lines of that)

    1. 

       Paul Cunningham 28 Sep 2010 Reply

       Hi Scott, I can’t seem to replicate your error. Perhaps type out the command manually in case something is going awry in copy/paste?

       1. 

          Scott K Swan 1 Oct 2010 Reply

          No luck. Tried it letter-by-letter and space-by-space, and I still get the same results when I open the csv file. Everything works, but the “export” part of it. I will just use the display listing and go from there. That is still a big help.

          Thanks for your time and assistance.

       2. 

          Paul Cunningham 2 Oct 2010 Reply

          Hi Scott, remove the format-table part of the command, it should work then.

          Get-MailboxDatabase “Mailbox Database 01” | Get-MailboxStatistics | Sort totalitemsize -desc | Export-Csv C:mailboxes.csv

          1. 

             Mishri Nishad 19 May 2014 Reply

             This command will work in this way,

             Get-Mailbox -database “Mailbox Database 01″ | Get-MailboxStatistics | Sort totalitemsize -desc | Export-Csv C:mailboxes.csv

    2. 

       Ferdie 11 Feb 2019 Reply

       FT or Format-Table doesnt work well with Export-CSV.

       Use SELECT-OBJECT instead of FT.

       Get-MailboxStatistics -Database “DatabaseName” | Sort -Property TotalItemsize -desc| Select-Object DisplayName, LastLoggedOnUserAccount, ItemCount, @{expression={$_.totalitemsize.value.ToMB()};label=”Size(MB)”}, LastLogonTime, LastLogoffTime | Export-CSV test.csv