Recover & Restore Purged Mailbox in Exchange 2010 / 2013 / 2016 / 2019
When users delete a mailbox, the Exchange keeps it in the mailbox database and make it disabled. The mailbox can be recovered until the deleted mailbox retention period expires (default retention period is 30 days) or manually purged before expiring the retention period. But, sometimes while cleaning the Exchange Server, users delete their essential mailboxes and start searching for queries like how to restore purged mailbox in Exchange 2010 etc. For example, see the following section:
“Last week, one of our employees has accidentally deleted a mailbox from the Exchange Database. That mailbox comprises some confidential emails and other crucial data items. Unfortunately, we do not have any backup to recover purged mailbox from Exchange 2010. Is there any manual or automated solution to restore deleted mailbox in Exchange 2010? Please help!”
Today thousands of Exchange users are facing the same scenario and if you have landed on this page while searching for the queries like above then, this article is just meant to you. In this editorial, we are going to discuss some easy and cost-efficient techniques to restore purged mailbox in Exchange 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and other below versions like Exchange 2007, 2003, 2000, etc. So let us get started!
#1. Professional Solution to Purge Soft/ Hard Deleted Exchange Mailboxes
The EDB Recovery Software is a powerful software that allows to recover purged mailboxes from Exchange 2010 and other versions. This utility can easily restore Exchange mailbox from EDB file easily. Using this, one can restore deleted Exchange Emails, Contacts, Calendars, Tasks, Journals, and Notes as well. Users can easily export Microsoft Exchange emails and other data items to the Live Exchange Server, Office 365 and other file formats.
All the Exchange folders including Public (Pub.edb) and Private (Priv.edb) can be recovered with this tool. You can export public folder Exchange 2016 & below version along with private mailboxes.
No matter if the Exchange mailbox folders are soft-deleted or hard deleted, the software will retrieve the mailbox database without any data loss. Moreover, while restoring purged mailbox in Exchange, the original folder hierarchy of Exchange folders will be maintained and users will face no difficulty while accessing the recovered mailboxes. After recovery, users can backup Exchange mailbox to PST and multiple file formats.
Steps to Restore Purged Mailbox in Exchange 2010 Automatically
- First, download the Exchange Recovery Software and launch it
- Select File – Choose this option if you know the exact location of EDB file from which mailbox gets deleted
- Search File – In case if you don’t know where your Exchange EDB file is saved. This option will let you Search EDB files in all system drives or selected system driveClick on Add File button and you will get two different options to add EDB files:
Add File option in Software
- Select the desired EDB file and add it to the software. The software will display the path of selected EDB file
select EDB file
- Now, the software will provide you two different scanning options: Quick Scan and Advance Scan. Since you have purged mailbox from Exchange so you have to select Advance Scan option for deep scanning. You can use these scan mode options to repair corrupted Exchange database with no data loss. This will help you to restore purge mailbox in Exchange 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019 EDB files. Click Add to proceed further:
Advanced Scan
- Exchange EDB file scanning status will be displayed by the software and once it gets done click Yes if you want to save the scanned EDB for future use.
Scan Process Complete
- After this, the software will load EDB file content and you can check EDB emails in Normal Mail View along with attachments. Also, other Exchange mailbox items like Calendars, Contacts, Tasks, Notes, and Journal can be viewed in the software pane
Preview Exchange mailbox data
- Next, either select all the desired items you want to export and click Export or directly hit the
Export button to restore purged mailbox in Exchange 2010
- The software provides multiple options to recover and restore deleted Exchange email folders. These export options includes PST, PDF, MSG, EML, HTML, MBOX. Users can easily convert EDB to PST and various other file formats in a hassle freeway.
Select Savings File Option
Bonus Tip: You can directly export recovered Exchange folders into Live Exchange Server or Office 365 just via entering the respective account’s credentials after selecting it.
- After doing Export Option Settings, Click on Browse and select a destination location to save resultant files
- Eventually, hit the Export button and Exchange mailbox recovery process will begin right after that. The software will display on-going EDB recovery status along with Folder Name, Item Count, and Destination Path
Save MS Exchange Mailbox data
- Once the Exchange mailbox recovery process gets done, Save Export Report as CSV and access the output data from supported applications
#2. Free Solutions to Recover Soft/ Hard Deleted Exchange Mailboxes
If you are looking for a free method to restore purged mailbox in Exchange 2010 then, this section is for you. Below is how you can restore deleted mailbox folder from Exchange.
Note: Choose the solution as per your current scenario.
Case 1: If Data Items/Folders are Deleted from the Mailbox
Follow the below-mentioned guidelines to restore deleted Exchange mailboxes via PowerShell:
Step 1: To recover Exchange mailbox items, the user requires some basic things. Either, a user should have the Enterprise Client Access License (CAL) or the Standard CAL License. If you have the enterprise CAL license then, perform Multi-Mailbox Search. However, with Standard CAL, one can search only a single mailbox at a time.
Now, the SingleItemRecovery must be enabled for that particular mailbox and this can be done via PowerShell command.
This command enables SingleItemRecovery for the mailbox.
For Example:
- Enable the Recovery Procedure for a Single User:
Note: This example will set single_item_recovery in the Exchange Server 2013 for Winslet Wilsen (a username)
Now, set the Deleted Item Retention for a Single User:
Note: This, example enables the restore purged mailbox in Exchange 2010 Samuel Mariam mailbox. This will set the deleted items retention time-period to 30 days
- Exchange 2013 allows single item recovery in the Exchange for Multiple User Mailboxes
The below example enables the recovery of a single data item for all user mailboxes of the organization.
- Exchange 2013 set up the single item recovery and fix the Deleted Item Retention Period for Multiple Users
Below given example will enable the procedure to mailboxes of all users of a company and also will set the deleted item retention period to the 30 days
Step 2: After executing the above-mentioned step, you need to verify that you have enabled the single system recovery for a mailbox and then, the value of the retention period will be successfully set. Now, run the following command via shell for this:
Case 2: If a Mailbox is Deleted from the Offline EDB File
Below are the steps to restore purged mailbox in Exchange 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019 EDB file with the help of CMD and Exchange PowerShell:
Check the state of .edb via running the below command:
eseutil /mh EXDB14.edb ( EXDB14- name of the database that was restored)
Generate the recovery database via the old .edb file
New-MailboxDatabase -Server mail01 -Name RecoveryDB01 -Recovery -EdbFilePath “E:\EXDB12\Exchange Server\EXDB14\File\EXDB14.edb” -LogFolderPath “E:\EXDB12\Exchange Server\EXDB14\Logs”
Mount the recovery database for further process to extract mailbox from offline EDB
Mount-Database RecoveryDB01
List all the mailboxes of that database via below command:
Get-MailboxStatistics -Database RecoveryDB01 | ft –auto
Restore the mailbox to a New or the existing mailbox
New-MailboxRestoreRequest -SourceDatabase RecoveryDB01 -SourceStoreMailbox “Doe, Jon” -TargetMailbox new user –AllowLegacyDNMismatch
Note: “Doe, Jon” is a mailbox user needs to restore from the old database and “new user” is a new mailbox. Check the restore status and then, remove it
Get-MailboxRestoreRequest -Status Completed | Remove-MailboxRestoreRequest
Export the mailbox to Outlook PST (if required)
New-MailboxExportRequest -Mailbox jondoe -FilePath //fileshare01/PST/jondoe.pst
Run the below command to inspect the export status Get-Mailboxexportrequest Deleted the completed export
Get-mailboxexportrequest –status completed | remove-mailboxexportrequest Delete the mailbox (if required) Disable-Mailbox Jon.Doe@domain.com
Remove and eliminate the recovery database In Exchange PowerShell run the below-mentioned command:
Remove-MailboxDatabase -Identity “RecoveryDB01”
After that, manually delete the file from its original position (database and the log)
The Final Note
How to restore purged mailbox in Exchange 2010, is such a common query asked by several users. In order, to fix this issue we have come up with this write-up. Here, we have discussed some simple techniques to restore purged mailbox from Exchange 2019, 2016, 2013, 2010, 2007, 2003, 2000. The manual methods given here might be complex non-technical users and cannot be performed without technical assistance. Hence, if you are not so tech-savvy then, it is recommended to go for the professional solution only.