Email administrators work on a variety of problems and issues surrounding email configuration changes and settings. But in conjunction with email client configurations and settings are also the settings on the email server, Exchange Server, which must also be tweaked from time to time.

Sometimes the size of the folders on the server and on the client can be different which can lead to confusion and unnecessary diagnostics. Users have reported mailbox sizes and folder sizes that are seemingly larger on the server than they are shown to be on Outlook.

For instance, the local data tab may show a size of six or seven megabytes for one of their Outlook folders but on their server data will show a much larger size such as one-hundred or more megabytes. Unfortunately adding the sizes of individual items will show that the client and the server data still do not match up as expected.

Making changes on the client such as deletions and even emptying out the mailbox will not reconcile the difference. But there is an explanation.

The fact that a client shows a folder size in the local data tab is an indication that the client is running in Cached Mode and that means there is a local copy of the mailbox being updated. It can happen that the local copy is significantly smaller than the actual size of the date on the server. If data has not been recently accessed then this can also affect the size reported for the local data since the client is in cached mode. Also the cached mode settings will affect the size reported. Having “download headers” enabled will also affect the size reported since not all of the data will need to be downloaded.

Continue reading Mailbox Server Sizes and their Adverse Effects