Mailbox size limits (Mail)

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Level 1

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Mailbox size limits (Mail)

Hi

My first question:is the following a genuine System message?

As I have received a couple of recent emails with the following address line:

"Your mailbox is over its size limit"

From:

System Administrator <postmaster@he.local>

with the following message:

"Your mailbox has exceeded one or more size limits set by your administrator.
Your mailbox size is 50198 KB.
Mailbox size limits:
You will receive a warning when your mailbox reaches 40000 KB.
You cannot send mail when your mailbox reaches 50000 KB.You may not be able to send or receive new mail until you reduce your mailbox size.
To make more space available, delete any items that you are no longer using or move them to your personal folder file (.pst).
Items in all of your mailbox folders including the Deleted Items and Sent Items folders count against your size limit.
You must empty the Deleted Items folder after deleting items or the space will not be freed.
See client Help for more information.

Second question: Can anyone provide any information that can explain this and how to resolve the problem (deleted emails and sent emails have been emptied and current recent received emails reduced to necessary minimum) as the message here follows on from the deletions.

Can the limit be adjusted or over-ridden?

G4 Mac OS X (10.3)
G4 Mac OS X (10.3) "
G4 Mac OS X (10.3)
G4 Mac OS X (10.3)

Posted on Mar 1, 2006 4:34 AM

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Answer 1

Mar 1, 2006 8:12 AM in response to Esox

"is the following a genuine System message?"

If you're on the 'he.local' network, with the users predominantly using Outlook, it certainly sounds like a message I got a time or two.

"Can the limit be adjusted or over-ridden?"

By the system administrator, certainly.

"Second question: Can anyone provide any information that can explain this and how to resolve the problem (deleted emails and sent emails have been emptied and current recent received emails reduced to necessary minimum) as the message here follows on from the deletions."

I'd call my IT folks; since it looks like they're set up to support Outlook users, it's not likely they'll have a real specific fix for you. They'll be able to verify if your mailbox is oversize, though. If you really can't reduce the size of your inbox (by moving messages to folders on your Mac, for example), perhaps you can talk them into a temporary relaxation of the rules to let you continue sending mail.

Good luck

srb

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Answer 2

Esox Author

Level 1

0 points

Mar 1, 2006 11:54 AM in response to Steven Blunk

Hi Steven

Thanks for your input, perhaps a little more detail may help.

I am a sole user on one G4, and am not associated with he.local other than if it is part of the OSx system (10.3) running on this machine. I do have considerably large files coming and going as I work as an illustrator and graphic designer.

These emails have been popping up over the last week or so and whilst I have perhaps 'assumed' them to be a genuine system warning message, I hav am always conscious of spam and false trails. They arrive with regular email downloads from my POP3 account.

Perhaps the extracted source code from the header of the email will provide some clue, I have pasted this below. Considering I do not run Outlook, but do currently use Entourage and or Mail the content is rather strange to say the least. If someone can say that there is no OSX preference or set up command to create this I can happily delet all such messages. Given the G4 is 4 years old and not had any software updates and no history of such 'problems' are these 'hoax' messages?

Email source code follows:

Received: by HEMV2BUKER.he.local
id <01C63D21.060E2F09@HEMV2BUKER.he.local>; Wed, 1 Mar 2006 11:12:27 -0000
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="---- =_NextPart_00101C63D21.060E2F09"
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.5.7226.0
Content-class: urn:content-classes:message
Subject: Your mailbox is over its size limit
Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 11:12:27 -0000
Message-ID: <FE15C041CFF72A4F99FB3D3004DFE45C01372E8A@HEMV2BUKER.he.local>
X-MS-Has-Attach:
X-MS-TNEF-Correlator:
Thread-Topic: Your mailbox is over its size limit
thread-index: AcY9IQYOpKn3SLqeSb+Jjogi3c8nag==
X-Priority: 1
Priority: Urgent
Importance: high
From: "System Administrator" <postmaster@he.local>
To: "DAVID BATTEN" <davidbatten@btconnect.com>

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

------ =_NextPart_00101C63D21.060E2F09
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="Windows-1252"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

G4 Mac OS X (10.3)

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Answer 3

Mar 1, 2006 12:54 PM in response to Esox

'he.local' is no part of OS X.

There's no Mail or Entourage or system preference you can set that will have any affect - this is an Exchange thing.

If you're not David Batten, you can certainly ignore these messages. I'd suggest reporting this to your ISP, since you're not even on an Exchange network - it's likely that something's gotten crosswired in the vast ol' Internet.

If you're David Batten and that btconnect address is correct, I'd still contact the ISP, for pretty much the same reasons.

If they're hoaxes, instead of an honest mistake, it has noting to do with the age of your computer.

By the way, when one of these comes in saying you're over limit and won't be allowed to send mail, -can- you send mail? That's just another step in answering "are these even intended for me?"

Good luck

srb

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Answer 4

Mar 1, 2006 3:09 PM in response to Esox

If your email account is a POP type account, what is your preference setting in Mail for "Remove copy from server after retrieving a message" which is available under the Advanced tab for the account preferences?

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Answer 5

Esox Author

Level 1

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Mar 2, 2006 12:13 AM in response to Allan Sampson

Hi Steven and Alan

Finally with both your inputs I have resolved the message source. My BT account now uses Outlook for the POP account and for the web mail service, something I haven't needed or used to date. However taking a look at this shows a random selection of emails from the many received over several months that had been moved to the trash folder in the account and not deleted.

This would suggest to some degree that as I have the 'remove copy from server' enabled, that Mail has been failing to complete this task for some reason and these emails had been transferred and not deleted.

I had started using Entourage as Mail had been rather unpredictable in some of its habits recently, crashing unexplainably for no apparent reason and clearly this is one of the unseen side effects.

As I am due for an upgrade in machine I will probably inherit a more stable Mail in due course, in the meantime I shall have to continue to check the web mail for debris.

Its a shame that the ISP doesn't clearly identify the account and themselves in these emails!

Thanks to both of you guys for your prompt responses to my request for assistance, they really are appreciated.

David

G4 Mac OS X (10.3)

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Answer 6

Mar 2, 2006 7:08 AM in response to Esox

Glad you got it fixed.

srb

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