If your antispam program creates new folders in every mailbox and you want the policy applied to these, click the Add button and enter the folder name; if you're adding subfolders, use the backslash to separate folder names: as in "Newsletters/Microsoft," not the forward slash used in the folder path in Outlook's Address bar (on the Web toolbar).

The criteria used to delete items is age and size-based and you can exclude items that use specific message classes, including custom forms. After completing the policy, right click on it in the policy list and choose Apply this policy now.

To run the policies automatically at a set time, open the server container, right click on the server name and choose properties. Use the Mailbox Management tab to configure the policies to run automatically, usually a weekend night. To run Mailbox Manager at any time, right click on the server name and choose Start Mailbox Management Process.

I use Mailbox Manager to remove old posts created from RSS feeds in my Newsgator folders, as well as Junk E-mail and Deleted Items. While administrators won't want to create highly customized Mailbox Manager policies for each user, Mailbox Manager is a good way to clean out messages in antispam folders and Deleted Items.

Share your thoughts on Mailbox Manager
The Exchange product group is looking for feedback on the Mailbox Manager. Stop by their blog, You Had Me at EHLO, at http://blogs.msdn.com/exchange/archive/2004/05/05/126922.aspx to see what other administrators have to say about the Mailbox Manager and leave your opinions on the following questions:

• If you use it today, why -- what scenarios do you use it for? For example, to reduce mailbox size to reduce backup time, to keep users under a certain SLA mailbox size, corporate retention policies, etc... just tell us any details you're willing to share on how and why you use it today.

• What does it do today that you like?

• What does it not do today, that you'd like to see it do in the future? Especially for those of you who don't use it today, is there some change we could make to it that would make you want to use it?

If you are looking for other mailbox management options, visit http://www.slipstick.com/addins/housekeeping.htm.

The raffle's still on
If you haven't already voted for your favorite Outlook or Exchange add-ins in the Slipstick Systems Ratings Raffle, vote now at http://www.slipstick.com/contest/default.aspx and you might win one of our weekly prizes. For more information and a current list of prizes, visit http://www.slipstick.com/books/contest.htm.

Diane Poremsky is the president of CDOLive LLC and a Microsoft Outlook MVP. She's author of Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours (Sam's, 2003) and coauthor of OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide). For questions or suggestions for future columns, write her at outlook@cdolive.com.