KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Learn about the best methods to extract mailboxes from an EDB file
- Discover the things to consider in the process
- Understand how tools like the EDB to PST converter help
EDB files are special database files used by Microsoft Exchange Server to store mailboxes and their data. Sometimes you may need to extract these mailboxes from the EDB file and save them in the PST file for many reasons.
Like extracting mailboxes for investigating or forensic searches, keeping a copy of the mailbox, archiving the data to increase the performance of the server, meeting compliance and regulatory requirements, or extracting data from the orphaned or restated database.
Let’s continue with the article and understand how one can easily extract multiple mailboxes from an EDB file.
Below, we will be seeing different methods to extract mailboxes from EDB files and store them in PST files. You can decide the best method according to your preferences and convenience.
You can use Microsoft Outlook equipped with multiple accounts where the user has full access to all the mailboxes or shared mailboxes. The method needed to export mailboxes to PST using Outlook is as shown below:
After this step, you have to select the items to export. You can simply click on the Filter button to select some regular filtering options. Finally, choose the location to save the PST file and activate the process.
Things to Consider
Although you are free to export more than one mailbox, this method is manual and tricky in a way, as you need to have the profiles set of the individuals whose mailboxes you want to extract. With the size limitation of 50 GB for PST, the splitting of the mailbox would be a chaotic job and take a lot of time. This method should only be selected for small exports.
This method doesn’t come with the option to extract several mailboxes at once, but with PowerShell scripting, it would surely be possible. To use this method, you need to give authority to the user to export the mailboxes. To do so, run the listed command.
New-RoleGroup -Name “Import-Export” -Roles “Mailbox Import Export” -Members <user email address>
This will give the user the authority to export mailboxes to PST.
To be able to export, you need to also set up a network share, as you cannot just export to a folder. The folder needs to be developed and must be shared with full permissions to the user (who will be exporting) as well as with the security group that is called Exchange Trusted SubSystem.
To export the mailbox to PST, you have to use the PowerShell command – New-MailboxExportRequest in the Exchange Management Shell (EMS).
New-MailboxExportRequest -Mailbox <user to export> -FilePath <network path to export>
In situations where you would like to extract multiple mailboxes, it is not natively accessible, but you can use a loop. The loop can be set up to go through all the users (see the below example).
$ExportPath = \\exchangeserver\pstexports
$mailboxes = Get-Mailbox -ResultSize Unlimited -RecipientTypeDetails UserMailbox
foreach ($item in $mailboxes)
{ $alias = $item.Alias
$pstFile = “$ExportPath\$alias.pst”
New-MailboxExportRequest -Mailbox $item.Identity -FilePath $pstFile }
The previously listed script will export all the user mailboxes to PST files. You should consider the overall performance of the server, as exporting all the mailboxes at once will significantly impact the performance of the server. So, the export should be done outside office work hours and alongside a maintenance window approved by the management.
To be hyper-specific, you can export the mailboxes specified in a CSV file (see the below example).
$csvPath = “C:\Scripts\mailboxestoexport.csv”
$ExportPath = \\exchangeserver\pstexports
$mailboxes = Import-Csv -Path $csvPath
foreach ($item in $mailboxes) {
$mailbox = $item.MailboxIdentity
$alias = ($mailbox -split “@”)[0]
$pstFile = “$exportPath\$alias.pst”
New-MailboxExportRequest -Mailbox $mailbox -FilePath $pstFile }
Things to Consider
Exporting many mailboxes would be heavy on the server so it needs to be done outside office hours. It is not natively supported and must be done through a loop. The scripting module features date ranges and include/exclude folders, but this gets a bit more challenging as there is a high margin of errors.
You can work with the eDiscovery service to create a new search for mailboxes from the interface segment of the Exchange Server. For this function, open the Exchange Admin Center (EAC), go to the Compliance Management, and tap on In-Place eDiscovery & Hold. Click on the New tab to build a new search and add the mailboxes using the filters, such as group, department, and others (like date ranges and keywords). The search will be saved and run at this point to gather all the information about the mailboxes.
Once this is done, you need to then tap on Export to a PST file. The eDiscovery PST Export Tool will launch with the choices to enable deduplication or include unsearchable things. The last act would be to specify the download location.
Things to Consider
This method guarantees a smoother process with the graphical user interface. Exporting multiple mailboxes will be a longer process and will impact the general performance of the server. When running such a process, you should divide the export into small jobs. There is no way to split the large mailbox into small PST files.
As you have already noticed, the native tools need some tweaking to export multiple mailboxes. You should consider the performance of the server as well as the shortage of options for granular export. Specialized EDB to PST converter tools, like Stellar Converter for EDB, can cope with such challenges.
With this tool, you can effortlessly open multiple mailbox databases, be it online or offline (standalone/orphaned), from any variant of Exchange Server, and of any size. You will be free to granularly export user mailboxes, user archives, shared mailboxes, and public folders to PST files and other file storage formats. You can also use the tool to export directly to a separate Exchange Server or Microsoft 365 tenant with fully automatic mailbox matching, priority export, and parallel exports. This is a smooth and seamless choice to export Exchange data with outstanding accuracy and integrity.
Above, we have looked at the native tools which are readily available to export multiple mailboxes from an Exchange Server to PST files. When exporting multiple mailboxes, you should always consider the accuracy and integrity of the data while ensuring a smooth and easy process. Stellar Converter for EDB is one example of the tools that can help you to easily and seamlessly export mailboxes from EDB file to PST format, with 100% precision and integrity.
It is the core file where Microsoft Exchange Server stores all user mailbox data—like emails, contacts, calendars, attachments, and tasks.
Yes, one can export multiple mailboxes from Exchange to PST at once.
Yes, it will likely slow down your server.
You can absolutely do that, but you need third-party tools like Stellar Converter for EDB, Kernel for EDB to PST Converter, or EdbMails.
