Is the Mailbox Full, Inactive, or Delegated Wrong? Diagnose It Before Rebuilding
Collect capacity, mailbox-type, archive, and permission evidence before changing quotas, delegates, or mailbox state.
The same user complaint—mailbox access is broken—can mean a quota problem, an inactive object, the wrong mailbox type, a missing archive, or incorrect delegation. Recreating permissions before identifying the condition adds churn and can expose more access than intended.
Build a read-first diagnosis with PSForge, then place any capacity or permission correction behind explicit owner approval. Generated reports describe current Exchange Online state; they do not decide who should have access.
Prerequisites and boundaries
Record the mailbox identity, reported symptom, affected delegate, expected mailbox type, data owner, and ticket approval. Use least-privileged Exchange Online access and protect exports containing identities or permission details.
- Do not grant broad permissions as a test.
- Do not convert mailbox type during discovery.
- Confirm licensing and retention implications outside this workflow.
Build a mailbox evidence packet
Export mailbox size, delegation, and bulk permission audit data for the narrow target set. Check inactive-mailbox reporting and current archive state. Compare findings manually with the owner's expected delegate list and the user's exact symptom.
Correct one cause and retest
Choose only the supported action justified by evidence: permission adjustment, mailbox-type conversion, quota or retention update, or archive enablement. Review generated parameters, execute under change control, rerun the relevant reports, and ask the user to repeat the failed action. Reporting alone does not prove client access works.
Owner approval matters PSForge generates the PowerShell; the mailbox owner or delegated authority approves access, and an administrator executes and verifies it.
Example mailbox diagnosis
- Record mailbox and delegate symptom
- Export size and inactive-mailbox evidence
- Export delegation and permission details
- Compare with owner-approved access
- Run one approved corrective action
- Rerun reports and complete the user access test
Final thoughts
Mailbox incidents become simpler when capacity, lifecycle state, and access are examined separately.
Make one evidence-backed correction, then verify both configuration and the user's real operation.