How to Export Exchange 2013 Mailboxes to PST

Exchange administrators often need to export mailboxes from Exchange database (EDB) files to PST format. The most common reason for doing so is to extract data from Offline EDB files and access it with MS Outlook or migrate to another server or Office 365.

However, exporting Exchange mailboxes to PST is a tedious task involving a lot of time and utmost care.

Earlier administrators had to rely on third-party utilities like ExMerge to import/export EDB to PST. However, with Exchange Server 2010 SP1, new PowerShell cmdlets, such as New-MailboxExportRequest, were introduced, allowing administrators to export mailboxes from the online Exchange database to PST format quickly.

Further, with Exchange 2013, Microsoft introduced Exchange Admin Center (EAC), a GUI-based web interface for administrators use to manage Exchange Servers.

This article covers the steps to export Exchange 2013 mailboxes to PST using the New-MailboxExportRequest cmdlet in Exchange Management Shell (EMS) and the Exchange Admin Center (EAC) web interface.

Steps to Export Exchange 2013 Mailboxes to PST via PowerShell Cmdlet

To export mailbox to PST, the following conditions must be met.

1. The account with which the export will be performed should have permission to Mailbox Import/Export request.
2. The user should have access to the network location to save the PST file. The user must know the complete UNC path. For example, \\PCName111\C$\PST\tstmail.pst.
3. Exchange 2013 mailbox, to be exported, must exist in the Exchange database (EDB).

Step 1: Assign Permission Rights

You must assign the required rights to the user account, which you will use to perform the Exchange 2013 mailbox export to PST format. Contrary to perception, even the admin account doesn’t have the right to perform these operations by default. Thus, type the following PowerShell command in PowerShell to assign requisite rights to the user account.

New-ManagementRoleAssignment –Role “Mailbox Import Export” –User Exporter

Here ‘User Exporter‘ is the account name to which the rights are given.

Alternatively, you may assign these rights to the AD group and make things more convenient. This way, whenever the rights are given to a user account, that account only needs to be added to this group. If you wish to do the same, enter the following command in the PowerShell window

New-ManagementRoleAssignment -Role “Mailbox Import Export” -SecurityGroup ExchangeAdmGroup

Here ‘ExchangeAdmGroup’ is the name of the AD group.

You can also perform this process from the Exchange Admin Center (EAC). After giving the rights, you’ll need to restart the EAC.

Step 2: Create a UNC Folder Path to Save Exported PST Files

To save the exported mailboxes to PST files, you must create a UNC file path or shared folder location. The steps are as follows:

• Create a folder at any location on your Exchange Server.
• Right-click on the newly created folder and select Give access to> Specific People…

• Select Everyone (not recommended) or your username (recommended) from the dropdown and click Add.

• Select Read/Write permission for the folder access and click Share.

• Note down the shared network path. In this case, it’s \\exsrv2013\d$\pst.

This is the shared folder path location we will use to export and save the exported mailboxes as PST files.

Step 3: Export Exchange 2013 Mailboxes to PST

To export the mailbox to PST in Exchange 2013, you can use the New-MailboxExportRequest PowerShell Command cmdlet in Exchange Management Shell (EMS).

New-MailboxExportRequest  –Mailbox  testdummy  –FilePath\\exsrv2013\d$\pst\TestDummy.pst

The above PowerShell Command exports the entire mailbox to the mentioned shared folder path as a TestDummy.pst file.

Export Particular Mailbox Folder to PST

You may also export a particular folder to the PST. To do so, change this PowerShell Command as follows,

New-MailboxExportRequest  –Mailbox  testdummy  –FilePath\\exsrv2013\d$\pst\TestDummy.pst  -IncludeFolders  “#Inbox#”

The command exports the Inbox folder in the Exchange 2013 mailbox to PST.

Exclude a Folder from PST Export

You can also exclude a folder from the PST export. For that, you need to change the command as follows:

New-MailboxExportRequest  –Mailbox  testdummy  –FilePath\\exsrv2013\d$\pst\TestDummy.pst  -ExcludeFolders  “#DeletedItems#”

The above command exports all folders and mail items from the Exchange 2013 mailbox to PST, except the ‘DeletedItems’ folder.

Exclude and Include Multiple Folders

If you would like to include or exclude multiple folders, you can use the comma between the folder names in the command.

“#DeletedItems#”,  “#Spam#”

Filter Mailbox Content for PST Export

If you would like to export, for example, mails received last year or between a certain date, you can use the –ContentFilter parameter.

-Content  Filter  {(Received  –gt  ‘01/01/2017)}

-Content  Filter  {(Received  –lt  ‘01/01/2017)  –and  (Received  –gt ‘01/01/2016)}

You can further customize the command as per your need. For example, to export all emails received after 1st January 2017 with the keywords “London” and “MSProject”, you can execute the following commands,

New-MailboxExportRequest –Mailbox mailtst –FilePath \HQFS01\ExportPST\mailtst.pst –ContentFilter {(body –like “MSProject”) –and {body –like “London”) –and (Received –lt “01/01/2017)}

After creating a PST export request from the EMS, you can check the status by executing the following command,

Get-MailboxExportRequest

Steps to Export Exchange 2013 Mailboxes to PST via Exchange Admin Center

You may use the Exchange Admin Center to request PST export for the selected mailbox in Exchange 2013. It’s GUI based and easy to execute. However, you can’t filter content or include/exclude folders from the PST export request.

Follow the given steps,

• Assign the Import/Export role, create a UNC path as discussed earlier.
• Open and log in to EAC as administrator.
• Then navigate to recipients > mailboxes and click on the More options.
• Select Export to a PST file option from the dropdown.

• In Export to a .pst file wizard, browse and choose the mailbox you want to export to PST and select the appropriate options to export only the contents of this mailbox or mailbox’s archive.

• Click Next and enter the UNC path (shared folder path on the network) with the file name of the .pst file. You can enter any name.

• Click Next and browse to select your user account. Exchange will mail you when mailbox export to PST is finished.

• Click ‘Finish’ to start PST export on Exchange 2013 mailbox server.

Final Words

So that is the detailed process to export Exchange 2013 mailboxes to PST format using the PowerShell Command in Exchange Management Shell (EMS) and Exchange Admin Center (EAC). In EMS, you need to execute PowerShell cmdlets that require some form of technical expertise to handle. If you make even a simple mistake such as a spelling error while executing commands, the results could be disastrous, including data loss. In such cases, you should rely on EAC. However, EAC limits export options. Also, when you don’t have access to the permissions required to export the mailboxes to PST, you cannot use these methods to export Exchange 2013 mailboxes to PST.

In such cases, you should use a trustworthy automated EDB to PST conversion tool, such as Stellar Converter for EDB. This tool converts all or selected items within the EDB to PST format accurately and in minimum time. It also shows a preview of the mail items after the EDB scan and lets you filter, choose and export selected mail items from the listed mailboxes. Further, it can export mailboxes to PST from online and offline EDBs. You can also import the converted mailboxes from offline EDB to Office 365 or another Exchange Server directly using the software at up to 4x faster speed with parallel processing.