User Can't Empty Deleted Items Folder

Question

_{Wednesday, August 8, 2018 1:33 PM | 1 vote}

Started with 1, now we have 3 users who cannot empty their deleted items folder in Outlook.  (Office 2016.)

The message they get is "Some items cannot be deleted.  They were either moved or already deleted, or access was denied."

If we try to delete them in OWA, they go away for a second, but then show back up after refresh.

There were a couple subfolders in Deleted Items (just deleted folders) and I was able to delete the contents of those, and then the folders, but not the messages.  There are roughly 2,200 items, so not near the 4000 limit I've heard that causes problems.

Any ideas?

Ben Rollman

All replies (10)

_{Tuesday, September 18, 2018 12:37 PM ✅Answered}

This is what we ended up doing.

*Check for recoverable items quota size "dumpster"*
Get-MailboxFolderStatistics -Identity "user name" -FolderScope RecoverableItems | Format-List

Anything near 4gb...

*Deletes items in RecoverableItemsFolder in case user can't empty deleted items*
Search-mailbox -identity "user" -SearchDumpsterOnly -DeleteContent

Ben Rollman

_{Wednesday, August 8, 2018 5:41 PM}

Have you checked the RecoverableItems size (and quota) for said users?

_{Wednesday, August 8, 2018 6:17 PM}

Yes.  The quota is Unlimited, and the user was at ~4gb.  I did a dumpster delete and they were able to empty their folder.  Now I'm concerned to why it happened if the quota was unlimited, and if I need to start going through yearly or quarterly and cleaning this up.

Ben Rollman

_{Thursday, August 9, 2018 6:20 AM}

Well, what are the Database-level settings on that?

_{Thursday, August 9, 2018 7:22 AM}

Hi brollman,

I guess your mailboxes or database is broking down:

You can take steps below to narrow down this issue:

1. Deleted mails one by one.

2. Use command below to repair your mailbox:

New-MailboxRepairRequest -Mailbox ayla -CorruptionType ProvisionedFolder,SearchFolder,AggregateCounts,Folderview

3. Try to migrate this mailbox to another database.

Regards,

Kyle Xu

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_{Thursday, August 9, 2018 12:18 PM}

1) The title of this topic is that we can't do that.

2) I don't know that it's corrupted, nothing else is presenting any symptoms.

3) We're a small shop and only have one exchange server.  Not an option.

Ben Rollman

_{Thursday, August 9, 2018 12:21 PM}

Well, what are the Database-level settings on that?

Is there a way to check what that is per database?  Only "RecoverableItemsWarningQuota" function I see is with Set-MailboxData.  In the EAC it doesn't have that, just the days to keep deleted items.

Ben Rollman

_{Thursday, August 9, 2018 1:33 PM}

You should have the RecoverableItemsQuota parameter as well, so you can set the quota on the db level:

Set-MailboxDatabase DB -RecoverableItemsQuota 100GB

Or you can simply use the -UseDatabaseQuotaDefaults flag to set individual quotas independent of the DB ones:

Set-Mailbox blabla -RecoverableItemsQuota 100GB -UseDatabaseQuotaDefaults $false

More info here: /en-us/exchange/recipients/user-mailboxes/deleted-item-retention-and-recoverable-items-quotas

_{Thursday, August 9, 2018 1:35 PM}

My question is, how do I see what the db quota level is for recoverable items as it is now.  If it's 4gb, I don't mind setting it higher.  I ran a command that made it look like it was unlimited, so someone running into a problem with the dumpster doesn't make sense.

Ben Rollman

_{Tuesday, August 28, 2018 10:58 AM}

Hi brollman,

Run the command below first, make sure mailbox use database configure:

Get-Mailbox user | fl RecoverableItemsWarningQuota,RecoverableItemsQuota,UseDatabaseQuotaDefaults

Then run the command below to check quota for database:

Get-MailboxDatabase | fl name,RecoverableItemsWarningQuota,RecoverableItemsQuota

Regards,

Kyle Xu

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Click here to learn more. Visit the dedicated forum to share, explore and talk to experts about Microsoft Teams.