Move an Inbox back from "Deleted Items"?

[jonarden]

Running Exchange 5.5 SP4. An off-site user with Outlook Web Access tried to delete an "Inbox" sub-folder, but instead managed to move their entire "Inbox" into "Deleted Items", and now the "Inbox" can't be moved back to it's standard folder location. The "Inbox" in "Deleted Items" is still receiving e-mail but can't be moved or deleted. Any simple way to get "Inbox" back to it's proper place in Outlook's folder structure? Or must I archive all the user's e-mail on their workstation on-site, delete their entire mailbox and create a new one via Exchange Administrator? Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[Tarun209]

Hi

just move the folder back to its original place


Regards
Tarun

 

[jonarden]

Thanks, but I wish it were only that easy. Try moving "Inbox" and you'll get the Microsoft Outlook message: "Can't move the items. Special folders, including the Inbox, Contacts, Calendar, Notes, Tasks, and Journal folders, cannot be moved". Outlook has built in restrictions so you supposedly can't move, delete or rename original Calendar, Contacts, Deleted Items, Drafts, Inbox, Journal, Notes, Outbox, Sent Items, or Tasks folders, (although you can create sub-folders with these same names).

My user somehow bypassed the "Delete" restriction when using Outlook Web Access and accidentally deleted "Inbox", which moved the original "Inbox" into the "Deleted Items" folder, an action which is not supposed to be allowed! And, there is no obvious way in OWA to reverse this action. I was hoping for a possible hack, or means of bypassing the Outlook restriction. Let me know if you hear of one.

 

[beckas]

Obtain a copy of the Microsoft Exchange Client (exchng32.exe), log into the user's mailbox using the Exchange Client and move the inbox back to it's original place from there. The Exchange client was packaged with Exchange 4.0 and 5.0. If you don't have a copy, here's a couple of knowledge base articles on obtaining the Exchange client. I'm not sure about the second article, but it contains a copy of exchng32.exe so maybe downloading it and double clicking it will launch the client.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q262426

or

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q141127

 

[jonarden]

Thanks for your suggestions. I lucked into getting some advice from Microsoft on this one, and for any who might want to know, they said that a user deleting an entire inbox, icon and all, is a strange, very rare, but known event. They also said the most trouble-free restore was to ExMerge the entire mailbox contents, delete the existing mailbox, create a new one for that user, and import the contents back.

 

[beckas]

Hhhhmmmm....interesting. Well good luck with that. I have to go out on a limb and disagree with Microsoft on this one though. If I can move the inbox back using the Exchange Client, why would I go through the hassle of re-creating the mailbox? I've found that re-creating a mailbox is not ideal because any updates to the mailbox owner's old calendar meetings are bounced back to the sender and this tends to cause a real headache.

 

[jonarden]

beckas Thanks for the added tip about the calendar issue! My user is in a small remote office so the calender issue may not be critical, but I'll certainly ask about whats entered in their Calendar! Question: For Exchange 5.5 SP4 on a Win 2000 server, which Exchange client should be used?

 

[beckas]

Come to think of it, I believe that replies sent to messages that were originated from the original mailbox will bounce as well. I recently deleted and re-created my own mailbox and a few people became very worried that I had left the company when their reply messages to me bounced back.

As for the version of Exchange Client, I don't think it matters. If you need to install the Exchange Client on a W2K or NT OS, then you'll need version 5.0. I have not had to move an inbox that was put under the "Deleted items" folder so I am not 100% sure that this will work but I have been able to rename inboxes, delete the main calendar folder, and delete mailbox rules using the Exchange Client and that's stuff that cannot be done via Outlook so there is a good chance that it'll work.

I tried to delete the inbox under an OWA account to test this out for you but it looks like the version of OWA that I have doesn't let me delete the inbox folder of a mailbox.