Applicable to MS-Exchange Server 2007 /2010

Messaging Records Management (MRM) can be used to reduce disk space that could be highly utilized by user’s mailboxes. MRM is powerful tool that can help systems administrators to automatically manage the content of users mailboxes by moving or permanently deleting “purging”, whatever these folders are default folders (e.g., Inbox, Sent Items, RSS feeds..) or custom folders created by the administrator.

In this demonstration we are going to apply MRM policy that can automatically move mail from the inbox folder to another custom folder called Archive folder every 30 days:

1-      Open Exchange Management Console EMC

2-      Expand Organization Configuration settings and click on the Mailbox node

3-      Create a Managed Custom folder and call it Archive Folder 01

4-      Click on the Managed Custom Folders tap and click on New Managed Content Settings from the actions pane

5-      In the wizard start typing a Name , select the message type, specify the length of retention period (in days), choose when the retention will starts, specify the action to “Move to a managed Custom Folder” and click on Brows button and select Archive Folder 01.

6-      Click on Next review the configurations summery then click on  Finish

Second step is to create a managed folder mailbox policy:

Click on New Managed Folder Mailbox Policy from the actions pane

specify a name (Archive) and add the inbox folder then click on New

Apply the policy to users:

The next step is to apply the policy to the users. We can apply it at the mailbox first time creation or by add it to existing users.

1-      In the EMC under the Recipient Configuration settings click on Mailbox node

2-      Right click on the required user and click Properties

3-      Click on Mailbox Settings tap then select Messaging Record Management and click on Properties

4-      Check Managed Folder Mailbox Policy and click on brows then select the Archive policy which we have already create it

5-      Click on OK and here we are, the policy is applied.

You can use the MRM to empty a specific default or custom folder Items every specific period of time, for example permanently delete "purge" the items in the Deleted Items folder every 2 weeks (more or less)

You can also determine the scenario you want to deploy and configuring the settings that you want to apply to default or custom folder that you need to be managed.