Delete an email from all mailboxes

[Jawloms]

Hi all,

 

I'm after a little help. We've always trusted our students here with email, but had the trust abused the other day. A student sent around a picture to all our other students which now needs removing from all mailboxes. I have done this in the past myself by simply searching for the subject. He didn't put a subject..... I've done a lot of Googling and can find masses of results based on the subject, but am struggling to find anything useful for a blank subject. Obviously I can't just delete all emails with no subject as there will be necessary emails that fall in to this.

 

I'm also after how to search everyone's sent items for this email to see if it's been forwarded on at all.

 

Any help gratefully received.

 

Stuart

[sted]

can you search for all blank subject emails from a user in a date/time range?

[psydii]

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff459253(v=exchg.150).aspx

 

Second example down.

 

Here's the documentation on how to do more advanced searches:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa965711%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

 

And a spiceworks page offering advice:

https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/679465-how-to-search-all-inbox-with-attachment-name-and-delete-all-inbox-exchange-2010

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff459253(v=exchg.150).aspx

 

Second example down.

 

Here's the documentation on how to do more advanced searches:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa965711%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

 

And a spiceworks page offering advice:

https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/679465-how-to-search-all-inbox-with-attachment-name-and-delete-all-inbox-exchange-2010

[Jawloms]

So I'm not getting very far!

 

The term 'Search-Mailbox' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check

the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again.

At line:1 char:51

 

As far as I can tell, the Search-Mailbox was brought in on 2010 SP1. My Exchange server is 2010 with no service Packs (I know I said I've done it before, but that was in my previous school!). I realise this is a problem and that is an ongoing issue I have too where no SPs will apply, but it does leave me a little stuck. Am I right that I can't "Search-Mailbox". Everything I'm finding on Technet talks about 2010 SP2 and SP3. Also, the picture sent wasn't an attachment, it was pasted in to the body of the email. I was hoping to just search for his alias and a blank subject and delete all those emails. Anyone got any other ideas please?

 

Stuart

[psydii]

I'd suggest if it is important that at this point you call Microsoft Support. They will probably insist you update to the latest SP + CU.

 

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/contactus/

 

"unable to get exchange 2010 search-mailbox to work. Need to remove email from all mailboxes."

 

Follow the wizard through. You will probably need the school business/credit card to complete the process. It should cost about £200, and as well as getting the mail deleted, you will likely end up with some recommendations from MS that you can use as evidence you need to be allowed more time for service maintenance.

 

(Just to check, you are trying this from an Exchange Management Shell, not a generic Powershell session?)

 

If you really can't get management to pay for MS to help here is the 2010RTM way:

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/exchange/2010/10/27/removing-specific-messages-from-your-exchange-server/

Edited March 13, 2017 by psydii
quick sanity check!

[psydii]

Actually there is a ton of useful stuff in that blog post... particularly if you've got mail in the delivery queues or still hitting the transport system.