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Deleting old email with a Exoledb Script

This question pops up now and again from people who want to be able to scheduled a script that will delete mail in a folder that was received more then say 30 days ago. Typically this could be used on a postmaster mailbox (hopefully people are reading these mails before they get deleted) or on a mailbox that is doing auto replies when you want to keep the original emails for a period of time. Going about this is quite simple in Exoeldb all you really need to do is query on the desired folder for all the mail where the urn:schemas:httpmail:datereceived is older then 30 days. Once you have all these mails in a record set you can loop though the recordset and delete the email. The thing to remember when you are deleting mail this way is that the deleted mail goes into the dumpster of whatever folder you are deleting them from

mailboxurl = "file://./backofficestorage/yourdomain/MBX/mailbox/inbox"
set Rec = CreateObject("ADODB.Record")
set Rs = CreateObject("ADODB.Recordset")
Set Conn = CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
Conn.Provider = "ExOLEDB.DataSource"
Rec.Open mailboxurl, ,3
SSql = "SELECT ""DAV:href"", ""DAV:contentclass"" FROM scope('shallow traversal of """ & mailboxurl & """') "
SSql = SSql & " WHERE (""urn:schemas:httpmail:datereceived"" < CAST(""" & isodateit(now()-31) & """ as 'dateTime')) AND ""DAV:isfolder"" = false"
SSql = SSql & " AND ""DAV:contentclass"" = 'urn:content-classes:message'"
Rs.CursorLocation = 2 'adUseServer = 2, adUseClient = 3
rs.open SSql, rec.ActiveConnection, 3
while not rs.eof
rs.delete 1
rs.movenext
wend
rs.close


function isodateit(datetocon)
strDateTime = year(datetocon) & "-"
if (Month(datetocon) < 10) then strDateTime = strDateTime & "0"
strDateTime = strDateTime & Month(datetocon) & "-"
if (Day(datetocon) < 10) then strDateTime = strDateTime & "0"
strDateTime = strDateTime & Day(datetocon) & "T" & formatdatetime(datetocon,4) & ":00Z"
isodateit = strDateTime
end function

If you want to go a step further with the script and crawl each folder in a mailbox to delete old content then you can combine this with one of the scripts from http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;320071 which gives you a method of enumerating every folder in a mailbox. Then you just call out an archive sub for each folder. This script gets a bit lengthy I’ve put an example of this as well as the other script from the article up here. As these scripts delete things great care should be always taken when using and testing scripts of this nature. Make sure you have adequately configured Deleted item retention rates and working backups, if you’re not sure what either of these things are don’t use the scripts (and seek help).

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All sample scripts and source code is provided by for illustrative purposes only. All examples are untested in different environments and therefore, I cannot guarantee or imply reliability, serviceability, or function of these programs.

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