PowerShell vs. Exchange Reporter Plus: Mailbox size statistics

One of the key things an Exchange administrator does is monitor mailbox sizes. Email is the primary means of workplace communication. As the number of emails exchanged in an organization increases, so does mailbox size. You need insight into how the average user in your organization is consuming mailbox space for better capacity planning and resource management.

Monitoring mailbox size using PowerShell scripting:

The Get-MailboxStatistics cmdlet is widely used to fetch mailbox size insight. The PowerShell script used is:

Get-MailboxStatistics -Identity '<Mailbox Identity>' | select LegacyDN, ItemCount, TotalItemSize, IsArchiveMailbox, DisplayName, DisconnectDate, DisconnectReason, LastLogonTime, LastLoggedOnUserAccount

This script, while simple, only gives you details about mailbox size and other parameters such as display name and last logon time. Customizing the script for additional parameters such as mailbox growth, size restrictions and more makes it longer.

With bigger scripts come a bigger chance of making an error, especially if you aren't tech-savvy.

Monitoring mailbox size using Exchange Reporter Plus

Exchange Reporter Plus provides granular reports on mailbox size that help you easily monitor size, growth, and size restrictions. You can also compare mailbox sizes with quotas and get real-time alerts when a storage quota limit is reached.