This post is dedicated to a few of our techs that will stay nameless to protect the innocent (or guilty) because it seems that they forget how to export mailboxes when they get a request to do one. Don’t worry, I still love you guys and I totally understand on forgetting how to do something if you don’t do it everyday. Repetition is key and when you don’t export mailboxes everyday it’s easy to forget.

So the next time you guys come to me and ask “Can I export a mailbox and if so, how do I do that?”  , I will simply refer you to this post.  I’m only going to post 2 of most commonly requested cmdlets, but for more detailed information on Managing Mailbox Import and Export Requests on Exchange 2010 visit Microsoft’s Technet here.

Prerequisites:

•  Mailbox exports can only be performed using EMS ( Exchange Management Shell), they cannot be exported using the EMC
• To be able to export a mailbox one must have the  Mailbox Import Export management role assigned to them or be added to the built-in Discovery Management Role Group in Exchange 2010.
• You need to create a network shared folder to place the exports
• The account running the export should have appropriate permissions to access to the network share to view the files when completed.
• The Exchange Trusted Subsystem group should be granted read/write permission on the network share. Please note:  If you don’t grant this permission, you’ll receive an error message stating that Exchange is unable to establish a connection to the target mailbox.

Exporting Mailboxes

• Log onto a system that has EMS installed
• Type the following cmdlets or you can copy and paste directly from this post.

To export the whole  mailbox:

New-MailboxExportRequest  “mailbox alias”  -FilePath  “\\filepathfor yourexport\nameofpst.pst”

To export data from the well-known folders in a mailbox. The list of well-known folders can be found on the Technet site

New-MailboxExportRequest  “mailbox alias”  -IncludeFolders “#Inbox#” -FilePath  “\\filepathfor yourexport\nameofpst.pst”

The export will take some time to complete – this all depends on how big the mailbox is. Once complete go to the mailbox export network share and copy the pst to any location you want to store it at.

After the export is completed you will need to do some clean up to remove the export request because it is not automatically cleared.

Removing the Export Request

• Type the following cmdlet or you can copy and paste directly from this post.

Remove-MailboxExportRequest -identity “user\mailboxexport”

And there you have it! Mailbox exports aren’t painful at all. Like with any powershell cmdlets you can copy these cmdlets and save to a text file. When you need it again just simply modify the names then do a copy and paste directly to EMS.