Delete Mailbox Without Deleting User Account in Exchange 2013

In Exchange 2013, if you delete a mailbox, the user associated with the mailbox in Active Directory is also deleted. But at some point, you might just want to delete mailbox only. So, in this post I will show steps to delete mailbox without deleting user account in Exchange 2013.

Delete Mailbox Without Deleting User Account in Exchange 2013

The trick is, just disable the mailbox to delete the mailbox to retain the user account. Open Exchange Admin Center (EAC). Click recipients in the features-pane and select mailboxes tab. Here, you can see the list of all the mailboxes configured in the Mailbox server. Select the mailbox you want to delete, click more (…) click disable.

A warning pops up. Click Yes. The mailbox is now disabled.

The mailbox now disappears from the list. The deleted mailbox will be automatically be deleted after the mailbox retention policy period expires. To do the same thing from PowerShell here is the cmdlet,

Disable-Mailbox bgiri

At this point, let’s say you want to re-connect to the mailbox again. In the EAC, navigate to same place, recipients > mailboxes. Here, click more (…), and select connect a mailbox.

This is how you can connect back to disconnected mailbox. But for now, I won’t connect it back. Now, to view the disconnected mailbox type following cmdlet in Exchange Management Shell,

Get-MailboxStatistics -Database “Mailbox Database 0372376569” | where {$_.disconnectdate -ne $null}

By default, the deleted mailbox will be stored in the database for up to 14 days. But if you want to delete it prior then follow these steps. To delete the disabled mailbox we need to get the GUID of the mailbox. To get the GUID of mailbox, type the following cmdlet in EMS,

Get-MailboxStatistics -Database “Mailbox Database 0372376569” | where {$_.disconnectdate -ne $null} | select displayname,MailboxGUID

To remove the deleted mailbox, type following cmdlet in EMS.

Remove-Mailbox -Database “Mailbox Database 0372376569” -StoreMailboxIdentity 92d20afd-42d8-496e-9455-34b3d6cb066e

The disabled mailbox is now deleted.

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Bipin

Bipin is a freelance Network and System Engineer with expertise on Cisco, Juniper, Microsoft, VMware, and other technologies. You can hire him on UpWork. Bipin enjoys writing articles and tutorials related to Network technologies. Some of his certifications are, MCSE:Messaging, JNCIP-SEC, JNCIS-ENT, and others.

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