To enable quick movement of communications among links in a link aggregation group, network element use a purge mechanism. A network element implementing the purge mechanism may disable distribution of additional frames to output queues associated with aggregated ports and potentially drop some or all frames from the output queues associated with aggregated ports. In conjunction with the dropping of frames, the network element may exchange one or more marker messages and marker responses with a remote network element. After receiving appropriate responses, the network element may restart distribution of frames to the affected ports.