How does GWCheck determine what items to expire ?

GWCheck will expire items as specified in the expire and reduce section based upon the message item's modified date. 

 

In order for a message item to expire, the modified date must be equal to or older than the expire items older than date specified in GWCheck.

 

To check the modified date of a message item:

Run GWCheck | Mailbox Statistics.  Using stand-alone GWCheck, fill in the different fields as normal.  Under Expire Statistics, fill in the expire stats, Items older than, etc.  GWCheck will generate a report of each user with the # of items that will be expired when Expire/Reduce Messages is run.

 

Another way to check the last modified date is to add the modified date column in the GroupWise client.

From within any folder in GroupWise | Right Click the Column headings | More Columns | from the list of Available Columns select Modified and choose Add |  Arrange the Selected Columns as desired and click OK.  Now each item in this specific folder will display the modified date. 

 

Use the GWCheck Mailbox Statistics Log or the GroupWise Client's modified date column to determine if the item is older than the GWCheck Expire items older than date option.

 

There are several normal end-user activities that will update the modified date.  Such as open, reply, forward, move to a folder, acted on by a rule, deleted etc.

 

In theory, if an item is expected to be expired after 30 days, if that same item has been acted upon after 29 days, the modifed date will update and the item's 30 day expire timer will reset and start over.  It will be another 30 days before this item is eligible to be expired.  The same activities could extend the life of this item even further as it continues to be acted upon.

 

Heavily replied &  forwarded message threads can linger in a GroupWise system longer than the expected expire items older than date set in GWCheck.  This is normal and is working as designed.