Setting mailbox limits in Exchange 2003
Exchange Server 2000/2003 allows the Exchange Administrator to set limits on the mailboxes of users in the Exchange Organization. Setting limits on the mailboxes help control the database size and plan for efficient backup, restore and maintenance tasks (read Calculating Storage Space in Exchange for more info).
Mailbox limits can be set in 3 places via the UI, plus by using scripts to directly edit the Active Directory. I will focus on the first 3 in this article.
Note that in order to set mailbox limits over 3GB you will need to manually edit the information in AD. The UI will not let you specify these sizes. Read Setting Mailbox Limits over 2GB for more info.
When you want to configure all mailboxes in a store to be limited in size you can either manually edit the store’s properties, or create a Mailbox Store Policy to effect many stores at once.
Method #1 – Mailbox Store settings – One store at a time
Mailbox Stores can be configured to have mailbox limits for all the mailboxes in them.
You can make these changes on the Limits tab of the Mailbox Store’s properties.
Repeat this procedure for any Mailbox Store that need to be configured.
Method #2 – Mailbox Store Policies – Many stores at the same time
System Policies in Exchange Server 2003 are configuration objects that allow the administrator to force a store settings to Mailbox and Public Folder Stores.
If you have many servers with many stores on them and you’d like to force the same setting on all stores, you can easily create Mailbox Store Policies, and have them applied to any number of stores.
Read Working with Store Policies for more info.
Finally, even if you have Mailbox Store settings in place, or Mailbox Store Policies up and running and effecting many stores, you might still want to exclude specific users from these limits. Setting Mailbox limits on the user account properties in Active Directory Users and Computers (ADUC) will overwrite the same settings on the Mailbox Store or Mailbox Store Policies, and are stronger than these settings. Read Overwriting Mailbox Store Policy Limits for more info.
There are 2 easy methods for setting specific mailbox limits:
Method #1: ADUC – One user at a time
In order to set mailbox limits on one user accounts follow these steps:
When done click Ok twice.
Repeat these steps for any user you need to modify.
Method #2: ADmodify – Many users at the same time
You can download ADmodify from the following link:
Download ADmodify
ADmodify does not need any installation, just unzip and run it.
ADmodify is a wonderful tool. One of the reasons is because it will allow you to modify almost any user or group attribute, and will do it for as many objects as you need.
(don’t mind the numbers, they are just examples)
All the users accounts that were selected will now be given the mailbox limits you’ve set.
You might also want to read the following related articles: