How to use one Mailbox Manager recipient policy to move items to the Deleted Items folder and then to delete the items

Problem description

In Exchange 2000 and in Exchange 2003, a customer wanted to use one Mailbox Manager recipient policy to move items to the Deleted Items folder after 30 days. Additionally, the customer wanted a second Mailbox Manager recipient policy to delete the items from the Deleted Items folder after five days. By design, only the highest priority recipient policy is applied. Therefore, if two recipient policies are created, only the first recipient policy is evaluated.

Solution

In Exchange System Manager, create one Mailbox Manager recipient policy to perform both actions. To do this, follow these steps:

1.	Specify the action to "move items to the Deleted Items folder" from any specified folders. This forces the items to be moved to the Deleted Items folder.
2.	In the same policy, set the Age Limit for the Deleted Items folder. This forces Mailbox Manager to delete the items that have reached the age limit that is specified for the Deleted Items folder.

This behavior occurs because the items that are moved to the Deleted Items folder cannot be moved to another folder. Instead, the items are deleted.