Exchange 2013 Monitoring Health Mailboxes Growing Out of Control
- Jan 14, 2016
- 4 min read
Exchange 2013 Monitoring mailboxes do not have a set quota. What you may find is that there are several thousand items in each of these mailboxes. I currently have 16 mailbox databases, with 2 health mailboxes per database. I was curious to find out how many items are in each mailbox to try to get a handle on Exchange database growth. Here is what I found:
[PS] C:\Windows\system32>Get-Mailbox -Monitoring | Get-MailboxStatistics
DisplayName ItemCount StorageLimitStatus LastLogonTime
----------- --------- ------------------ -------------
HealthMailbox9905ed923... 3 7/16/2014 10:48:34 AM
HealthMailbox9905ed923... 3 7/10/2014 1:47:10 PM
HealthMailboxfbc60c8a0... 1 7/16/2014 10:48:09 AM
HealthMailbox2007dbd50... 193369 3/4/2015 5:24:13 AM
HealthMailbox0af257470... 2 7/16/2014 10:52:24 AM
HealthMailboxa2757c02f... 33 7/16/2014 10:48:21 AM
HealthMailbox8d3070263... 126 7/16/2014 10:04:29 AM
HealthMailbox09c0df914... 194872 3/4/2015 5:23:36 AM
HealthMailbox49ef0e29a... 194875 3/4/2015 5:26:26 AM
HealthMailboxa9182c1be... 191485 3/4/2015 5:24:08 AM
HealthMailbox8d3070263... 32 7/13/2014 9:25:03 AM
HealthMailbox0af257470... 2
HealthMailbox0fdbdcd48... 42 7/16/2014 10:35:32 AM
HealthMailboxd25cfc384... 194860 3/4/2015 5:27:00 AM
HealthMailbox2e01e9b1b... 8 7/7/2014 12:03:26 PM
HealthMailboxac2e240d9... 1711 7/16/2014 10:01:08 AM
HealthMailbox2e01e9b1b... 1 7/16/2014 10:54:20 AM
HealthMailbox647c626f4... 2 7/16/2014 10:50:19 AM
HealthMailbox6582ca589... 194771 3/4/2015 5:24:34 AM
HealthMailbox5f7c59aa8... 1 7/16/2014 10:04:12 AM
HealthMailboxf71de36bd... 192205 3/4/2015 5:24:15 AM
WARNING: The user hasn't logged on to mailbox 'Microsoft Exchange System Objects/Monitoring
Mailboxes/HealthMailbox9189a2dd33424890912362c395bc79b5' ('f3bc348b-0c6b-4e4b-931a-4f20e11659e4'), so there is no data
to return. After the user logs on, this warning will no longer appear.
HealthMailboxe069b07d1... 1627 7/16/2014 10:03:01 AM
HealthMailbox9ac9811ab... 1 7/16/2014 10:54:36 AM
HealthMailboxa8396d773... 194896 3/4/2015 5:25:21 AM
HealthMailboxdc27ef642... 1 7/16/2014 10:46:05 AM
HealthMailboxad4f6c557... 194908 3/4/2015 5:27:46 AM
HealthMailbox9ac9811ab... 2 7/15/2014 10:53:34 PM
WARNING: The user hasn't logged on to mailbox 'Microsoft Exchange System Objects/Monitoring
Mailboxes/HealthMailboxffc569e756924769944073cf6e5bf3f4' ('d1097e38-7751-442a-b940-4be07ba753fc'), so there is no data
to return. After the user logs on, this warning will no longer appear.
HealthMailboxf6664dfc4... 191961 3/4/2015 5:23:29 AM
HealthMailbox4cc71caff... 191684 3/4/2015 5:26:25 AM
HealthMailboxe35c04a03... 192581 3/4/2015 5:26:43 AM
HealthMailboxfe76a7905... 2 7/16/2014 10:05:08 AM
HealthMailbox54f54c0d9... 1 7/16/2014 10:00:19 AM
HealthMailbox1c0f9ade6... 35 7/16/2014 10:41:21 AM
HealthMailbox1af838489... 2 7/16/2014 10:45:54 AM
HealthMailbox9810a8c59... 192714 3/4/2015 5:28:08 AM
HealthMailboxb4c7412e9... 194873 3/4/2015 5:27:24 AM
HealthMailbox02f0ea61d... 192622 3/4/2015 5:27:47 AM
HealthMailbox282d34047... 1 6/5/2014 4:18:31 PM
HealthMailbox3870d3244... 192705 3/4/2015 5:27:00 AM
HealthMailbox-excas1-001 10835 1/13/2016 9:43:38 AM
HealthMailbox-excas1-004 21932 1/13/2016 10:51:20 AM
HealthMailbox-excas1-006 17005 1/13/2016 10:07:30 AM
HealthMailbox-excas1-008 10910 1/13/2016 10:54:11 AM
HealthMailbox-excas1-007 4372 1/13/2016 10:58:11 AM
HealthMailbox-excas1-002 11740 1/13/2016 10:40:51 AM
HealthMailbox-excas1-005 2796 1/13/2016 10:50:11 AM
HealthMailbox-excas2-002 7435 12/16/2015 12:22:18 AM
HealthMailbox-excas2-004 9397 12/16/2015 12:29:34 AM
HealthMailbox-excas2-006 2240 12/16/2015 12:33:57 AM
HealthMailbox-excas2-008 5943 1/13/2016 11:00:01 AM
HealthMailbox-excas2-001 9110 12/16/2015 12:39:11 AM
HealthMailbox-excas2-003 5964 12/16/2015 12:16:56 AM
HealthMailbox-excas2-007 22840 1/13/2016 10:57:20 AM
HealthMailbox-excas2-005 8968 12/16/2015 12:41:35 AM
HealthMailbox-excas3-001 8054 1/13/2016 1:16:04 AM
HealthMailbox-excas3-002 5813 1/13/2016 1:24:07 AM
HealthMailbox-excas3-005 2045 1/13/2016 9:40:09 AM
HealthMailbox-excas3-006 29248 1/13/2016 5:17:20 AM
HealthMailbox-excas3-008 1442 8/28/2014 4:22:50 AM
HealthMailbox-excas3-010 4362 1/13/2016 10:57:47 AM
HealthMailbox-excas3-007 6430 1/13/2016 10:11:17 AM
HealthMailbox-excas3-009 9127 1/13/2016 10:06:12 AM
WARNING: The user hasn't logged on to mailbox 'Microsoft Exchange System Objects/Monitoring
Mailboxes/HealthMailbox4cc8c29af43640fbba96680a43d808ef' ('69f8debf-fbee-4cc9-bae9-d506f66beefa'), so there is no data
to return. After the user logs on, this warning will no longer appear.
HealthMailbox-excas3-004 6810 1/13/2016 9:52:26 AM
HealthMailbox-excas3-003 2 1/13/2016 6:05:45 AM
WARNING: The user hasn't logged on to mailbox 'Microsoft Exchange System Objects/Monitoring
Mailboxes/HealthMailbox379e3cea56b44fdb86f7736acec13fa2' ('c0e35de2-a91d-4910-8105-c9034d562cf6'), so there is no data
to return. After the user logs on, this warning will no longer appear.
WARNING: The user hasn't logged on to mailbox 'Microsoft Exchange System Objects/Monitoring
Mailboxes/HealthMailbox406d390b801046789d4a130017ae9e24' ('7e04fcea-d618-4bee-b59f-8653f893bc24'), so there is no data
to return. After the user logs on, this warning will no longer appear.
HealthMailbox-excas2-009 8011 12/16/2015 10:34:27 AM
WARNING: The user hasn't logged on to mailbox 'Microsoft Exchange System Objects/Monitoring
Mailboxes/HealthMailbox2b9a0b3b8f6c468190a3dfd4eb84b1e4' ('7f67afc1-71a6-4328-b715-22bd4e1c84ea'), so there is no data
to return. After the user logs on, this warning will no longer appear.
HealthMailbox-mbx1-exdb8 452671 1/13/2016 11:15:41 AM
HealthMailbox-mbx1-exdb3 452710 1/13/2016 11:14:06 AM
HealthMailbox-mbx1-exdb6 2383 1/13/2016 11:11:03 AM
HealthMailbox-mbx1-exdb2 2366 1/13/2016 11:12:53 AM
HealthMailbox-mbx1-exdb5 452694 1/13/2016 11:14:38 AM
HealthMailbox-mbx1-exdb1 2351 1/13/2016 11:16:03 AM
HealthMailbox-mbx1-exdb4 2775 1/13/2016 11:15:41 AM
HealthMailbox-mbx1-exdb7 2388 1/13/2016 11:13:29 AM
HealthMailbox-mbx2-exdb14 452807 1/13/2016 11:15:47 AM
HealthMailbox-mbx2-exdb13 452857 1/13/2016 11:14:24 AM
HealthMailbox-mbx2-exdb17 452596 1/13/2016 11:15:27 AM
HealthMailbox-mbx2-exdb18 452817 1/13/2016 11:14:50 AM
HealthMailbox-mbx2-exdb16 455523 1/13/2016 11:15:28 AM
HealthMailbox-mbx2-exdb15 313142 1/13/2016 11:15:57 AM
HealthMailbox-mbx2-exdb11 2232 1/13/2016 11:15:46 AM
HealthMailbox-mbx2-exdb12 51408 1/13/2016 11:13:59 AM
As you can see, there are several Health Mailboxes that have around 452,807 items in them. After reading several articles, there appear to be 4 options on how to deal with high number of items in the Health Mailboxes.
1. Leave them alone, and allow the mailbox to grow unlimited
2. Apply a retention policy on the health mailboxes to delete messages older than 30 days
3. Run an export-mailbox command on the health mailboxes with the -DeleteContent parameter
4. Delete the Health Mailboxes and recreate them
I decided to assign a retention policy to our health mailboxes to delete messages older than 30 days. WARNING!!!!!This process will tag each message and create significate logging in your transaction logs for each database. I recommend applying the retention policy to one health mailbox at a time and waiting for successful results before applying to additonal health mailboxes. This could potentially fill up your log directories and/or cause backup issues if your mailbox servers are virtual.
Get-Mailbox –Monitoring | Set-Mailbox –RetentionPolicy ‘Health Mailboxes Retention Policy’
or for only 1 mailbox
Get-Mailbox HealthMailbox9905ed92377398783df | Set-Mailbox –RetentionPolicy ‘Health Mailboxes Retention Policy’
Good Luck!
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