How to check if Exchange Destribution groups are in use

Posted on March 16th, 2009 in Excahnge 2007, Microsoft by Gil Kreslavsky

You probably are familiar with the issue.
You created multiple distribution groups , over the years and now you don’t know if they are in use.

Usualy company uses half of available distribution lists.

So how you can trace it ?

In exchange 2007 follow this.

Get-MessageTrackingLog -Start 1/1/2009 -EventID Expand | ft Timestamp,RelatedRecipientAddress -Autosize

You get back something like this:The output shows when specific distribution group received last message.

Timestamp RelatedRecipientAddress
——— ———————–
1/11/2008 2:06:21 PM DG-Doctors@domainname.com

Now we need to check how many emails each group has

Get-MessageTrackingLog -Start 1/1/2009 -EventId Expand | group-object RelatedRecipientAddress | ft Name,Count -Autosize

You’ll receive something similar to this

Name Count
—- —–
Doctors@domainname.com 347

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