I had written an article a while back about archive mailbox which generated a lot of response (comments) from my readers. In this one, I will explain how to configure quotas for archive mailboxes, if anyone is using it. Do understand that an enterprise CAL is needed to use archive mailbox functionality.
Archive mailboxes have unlimited storage by default and no admin wants that. You can configure two settings, archive warning quota and archive quota.
As the name implies, the archive warning quota is a limit set by the admin to warn the user that they are very near to reaching the maximum allowed limit for their archive mailbox. When a user reaches the archive warning quota, exchange logs an event for the administrator and fires an email to the user. You can use both EMC and Shell to configure the setting. Launch EMC, take the user properties, navigate to “Mailbox Settings” tab, select “Archive Quota” and click properties. Set the limit in MB. The option “Archive Quota” in the user properties should ideally be “Archive Quota Warning” in my opinion.
If you are a Powershell guy, run Set-Mailbox –identity “user” –ArchiveWarningQuota” 900MB
Archive Quota is the limit set by the admin as the maximum amount of storage allotted for a user’s archive mailbox. When a user reaches the quota limit, a message is fired to the user and he/she won’t be able to move any more messages into the archive mailbox. This limit can only be set by using the Shell. To set the limit to 1Gb, run Set-Mailbox –identity “user” –ArchiveQuota 1GB.
Anonymous April 8, 2010 at 12:12 pm
I am using a thirdparty solution for email archiving on Exchange 2007. Can anyone advice what is the best way to limit the mailbox size?
Currently the journaling also enabled and every email automatically gets archived for the user. Users have no quota set and I think users will abuse this feature. So any advice on what is the best way to limit the mailbox size on Exchange 2007?
Anonymous May 26, 2010 at 2:04 am
How do you set archive quota's for multiple users?
Is there a default limit that can be set rather than an "unlimited" quota when an Archive is enabled?
I need to perform this on users located on separate databases, but do not want ot powershell script each individual user as I have hundreds to do.
Rajith Jose Enchiparambil May 26, 2010 at 7:08 am
Hi Anonymous,
In order to set it from multiple users by database, run
Get-Mailbox -Database "dbname" | Set-Mailbox –ArchiveWarningQuota” 900MB"
If you want all of your users to have the same limit, run Get-Mailbox | Set-Mailbox –ArchiveWarningQuota” 900MB"
Anonymous June 3, 2011 at 1:54 pm
After you set auto archive? is there a way to see where the online archive is on the database? if so can i move it to a different database?
Rajith Jose Enchiparambil June 3, 2011 at 2:16 pm
To find which database hosts the archive, run
Get-Mailbox "username" | fl archivedatabase
Yes, you can move the archive to a different database, provided that you have SP1 installed.
jonathan January 6, 2012 at 10:22 pm
do i need an enterprise CAL to use either the local or remote hosted archive features?
Rajith Enchiparambil January 9, 2012 at 11:53 am
Hi Jonathan,
Yes, you need to have enterprise CAL for the users who need archive mailbox. So, if you have 100 users in total and 20 need archive mailboxes, you need 100 std cals and 20 enterprise cals.
The enterprise cals doesn’t cover std cals.
Do let me know if you have more queries.
Thanks.