Export Exchange 2016 Mailbox to PST with PowerShell – Stepwise Guide

Tej Pratap Shukla | Modified: February 24, 2021 | Exchange Server 2016, Export | 5 Minutes Reading

MS Exchange Server uses an active directory for storage of user account and its mailbox Database. Single mailbox database is used to store the mail data of each user account. However, contents of the mailbox cannot be accessed in Exchange applications when there is a network issue, unavailability of Server, server downtime etc. In such situations, a user may need to export  Exchange mailbox to PST file, which can be then accessed in MS Outlook in the absence of Exchange Environment. The blog will be discussing how a user can export Exchange 2016 Mailbox to PST with PowerShell commands.

Instant Solution: You can use the SysTools Exchange Export tool to export Exchange mailbox to PST from Live Exchange Server 2016 / 2013 / 2010 / 2007 / 2003 in a simplified manner without any trouble. This utility is capable enough to export the enabled, disabled, disconnected, disabled, corrupt, hosted, and journal mailboxes to the Outlook PST file. For example: if you want to convert Exchange 2010 mailbox to PST file then users can easily export it with the help of this software in a hassle freeway.

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Pre-Requisites Before Export Exchange Mailbox Process

Before starting the export process, a user needs to have permissions for exporting Exchange mailbox to Outlook PST file. The Read/Write permissions need to be provided to group Exchange Trusted Subsystem by the user. Export may not be successful if the permissions desired are not set properly.

  • A user performing the export must be the member of the role group having access to the Mailbox Import Export role. For achieving this, we will use the following commands defined: New management role assignment - export exchange 2016 mailbox to pst
  • Another requirement is to make the location of the PST file to which Exchange mailbox will be exported needs to be a shared folder. For this, click on the properties tab of the folder, go to sharing section -> Advance settings -> Permissions. Now assign full control to everyone.

Export Exchange Mailbox to PST with PowerShell

A user needs to use Exchange Management Console on the system to use the PowerShell commands. We will learn how to export Exchange 2016 Mailbox to PST Outlook in two ways:

Method to Export Exchange Mailbox to PST

  • For Export of Single Exchange Mailbox

    We will use the following commands to export an entire mailbox to the Outlook PST file:
    The Export of Exchange Mailbox to PST file will require usage of MailboxExportRequest cmdlet. It has two main parameters:
    New mailbox export request - Export Exchange 2016 Mailbox to PST
    FilePath-It will define the Network share path of the PST file to which data needs to be exported
    Mailbox– Defines the username, SMTP addresses or display name of the mailbox user needs to export to PST file.
    Above command is used for exporting all the data items in a mailbox to PST, however, if a user wants to export only some of the items only. These commands stated below can be used:

    1. –ContentFilter
      This command is used to specify the conditions that need to be met while exporting mailbox items to PST. One example is stated below: New mailbox export request - Export exchange 2016 mailbox to pst
    2. -ExcludeFolders and -IncludeFolders
      This command allows a user to choose any desired Exchange mailbox folders. Example is: New mailbox export request - Export exchange 2016 mailbox to pst
    3. -IsArchive
      This is a parameter to define the archive as the only source of the export. One example is: New mailbox export request - Export exchange 2016 mailbox to pst
    4. –Name
      This parameter is used to set the name of an export request, useful for tracking and to define multiple export requests per single mailbox. New mailbox export request - Export exchange 2016 mailbox to pst
  • For Bulk  Export Exchange 2016 Mailbox to PST Powershell

    In order to export multiple Exchange Mailboxes to PST file, we will save all the mailboxes to a variable using the command: $AllMailboxes = Get-Mailbox
    Now, we will export all the mailboxes to Outlook PST files using names set on mailbox aliases. All mailboxes - Export exchange 2016 mailbox to pst
    For filtering the contents, we can use the same parameters discussed above in case of single mailbox export.

Note: This procedure cannot be used for export of damaged or corrupted mailbox.

Problems While Using Powershell to Export

While working with ExportRequest Powershell commands, sometimes Exchange Administrator faces issues while exporting exchange mailbox to pst formats such as:

exchange-export-tool - Copy

To fix these issue, you can check out following section:

a) Large Exchange Mailboxes

b) BaditemLimit Error

Note: The manual solution doesn’t export the offline or dismounted Exchange mailboxes to Outlook PST file. For that you can use the EDB Converter software provided by SysTools which supports the offline/dismounted EDB file and users can export multiple Exchange database mailboxes to the PST file in bulk. Also, you can easily bulk export the EDB to PST, EML, HTML, PDF, MBOX, MSG file formats in the simplest and quickest way.

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Conclusion

An Exchange Administrator can export Exchange 2016 mailbox to PST without PowerShell commands or Command mentioned in the above blog in epth. Once the mailbox data are exported to PST file making it accessible in MS Outlook and this file can be copied to another system. It not helps users to access emails in the absence of the Exchange server but also serves users as a backup when the Exchange server is unavailable/corrupted. This procedure cannot be used for export of damaged or corrupted mailbox.