Exchange 2016 – Delete Public folder issues
There is a known issues regarding delete public folder on exchange 2016 and that may appear on two scenarios:
1st scenario when you delete the public folder from EAC but when you run the Get-MailboxStatistics you will find the public folder mailbox still appearing.
In this case you should permanently delete the public folder mailbox using exchange management shell using command “remove-mailbox” as following
“Remove-StoreMailbox -Database “DBname” -Identity “GUID of the diabaled PF mailbox” -MailboxState Disabled”
2nd scenario may be happen while migrating from EX2010 to EX2016 and the public folder may appear on both versions and you will receive the following error when you try to delete it
“The public folder database ‘**’ cannot be deleted.
Public Folder Database **
Failed
Error:
Public folder database “**” is the default public folder database for the following mailbox database(s):
. Before deleting the public folder database, assign a new default public folder database to the mailbox database(s).”
That means your public folder database is being used by newly created databases in Exchange 2016 you can solve this issue using the following command
“Set-MailboxDatabase Default-ExchDB -PublicFolderDatabase $null”
If this wouldn’t work then you can use ADSIEdit as following
- Open ADSIEdit.msc
- Connect to the Configuration naming context with ADSIEdit
- Go to CN=Services -> CN=Microsoft Exchange -> CN=(your organization name) -> CN=Administrative Groups -> CN=Exchange Administrative Group -> CN=Databases
- Right click on each database that you see error on them – go to properties – find the msExchHomePublicMDB attribute – Edit – Clear
Ratish Nair
Microsoft MVP | Office Servers and Services
Team @MSExchangeGuru
