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Exchange 2010 SP3 - Export all Mail and Public Folder DBs to pst

I'm trying to find the command that will allow me to export all mailstores and Public Folders to PSTs. I also need to find away to export any rules that the users have.

The Mailstores need to be exported by date range. I've been trying to use the following for just one mailbox:

Export-Mailbox -Identity &lt;mailbox-alias&gt; -StartDate "01/01/2014" -EndDate "03/31/2014" -PSTFolderPath \\IP Address\folder\folder\username.pst

and all it did was bring me to: &gt;&gt;

Not sure if there was anything I was missing but I wanted to use this just to test how the export of one mailbox would go.

Does anyone know what command and syntax I would use to export all of the mailstores to individual PSTs?

Frosty555

The way I've done it in the past, a Mailbox Export happens asynchronously in the background. You begin the request using the New-MailboxExportRequest command, and you check on the request periodically with Get-MailboxExportRequest. That command will give you error and status information. Later when the export is finished, you remove the request using the Remove-MailboxExportRequest command.

You must specify the target UNC path where the PST will be written to, and this path must have it's security and sharing settings configured so that it may be written to by the "Exchange Trusted Subsystem" domain group and the "SYSTEM" group.

I modified a script by Steve Goodman that I found some time ago that exports all user mailboxes. I run it as part of a backup strategy for some smaller clients. It probably doesn't do public folders or rules, but you can use it as a starting point.

backup_exchange_mailboxes.bat:

C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -command ". 'c:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\bin\RemoteExchange.ps1'; Connect-ExchangeServer -auto; E:\backup_exchange_mailboxes.ps1"

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backup_exchange_mailboxes.ps1:

# Exchange 2010 SP1 Mailbox Export Script
# Steve Goodman. Use at your own risk!

###############
# Settings    #
###############

# Pick ONE of the two below. If you choose both, it will use $Server. If you choose neither, all mailboxes will be exported
$Server = ""
$Database = ""

# Share to export mailboxes to. Needs R/W by Exchange Trusted Subsystem
# Must be a UNC path as this is run by the CAS MRS service.
$ExportShare = "\\YOURBACKUPSERVER\MailboxBackupFolder"

# After each run a report of the exports can be dropped into the directory specified below. (The user that runs this script needs access to this share)
# Must be a UNC path or the full path of a local directory.
$ReportShare = "\\YOURBACKUPSERVER\MailboxBackupFolder"

# Shall we remove the PST file, if it exists beforehand? (The user that runs this script needs access to the $ExportShare share)
# Valid values: $true or $false
$RemovePSTBeforeExport = $true

###############
# Code        #
###############

if ($Server)
{
    if (!(Get-ExchangeServer $Server -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue))
    {
        throw "Exchange Server $Server not found";
    }
    if (!(Get-MailboxDatabase -Server $Server -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue))
    {
        throw "Exchange Server $Server does not have mailbox databases";
    }
    $Mailboxes = Get-Mailbox -Server $Server -ResultSize Unlimited
} elseif ($Database) {
    if (!(Get-MailboxDatabase $Database -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue))
    {
        throw "Mailbox database $Database not found"
    }
    $Mailboxes = Get-Mailbox -Database $Database
} else {
    $Mailboxes = Get-Mailbox
}


if (!$Mailboxes) 
{
    throw "No mailboxes found on $Server"
}

if (!$Mailboxes.Count)
{
    throw "This script does not support a single mailbox export."
}

# Pre-checks done

# Make batch name
$date=Get-Date
$BatchName = "Export_$($date.Year)-$($date.Month)-$($date.Day)_$($date.Hour)-$($date.Minute)-$($date.Second)"

Write-Output "Queuing $($Mailboxes.Count) mailboxes as batch '$($BatchName)'"

# Queue all mailbox export requests
foreach ($Mailbox in $Mailboxes)
{
    
    if ($RemovePSTBeforeExport -eq $true -and (Get-Item "$($ExportShare)\$($Mailbox.Alias).PST" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue))
    { 
        Remove-Item "$($ExportShare)\$($Mailbox.Alias).PST" -Confirm:$false 
    }
    New-MailboxExportRequest -BatchName $BatchName -Mailbox $Mailbox.Alias -FilePath "$($ExportShare)\$($Mailbox.Alias).PST" -AcceptLargeDataLoss -BadItemLimit 2147483646
}

Write-Output "Waiting for batch to complete"

# Wait for mailbox export requests to complete
while ((Get-MailboxExportRequest -BatchName $BatchName | Where {$_.Status -eq "Queued" -or $_.Status -eq "InProgress"}))
{
    Write-Output ""
    Write-Output "Current Status:"
    Get-MailboxExportRequest -BatchName $BatchName
    sleep 60
}

Write-Output ""
Write-Output "Batch is complete. Final results:"
Get-MailboxExportRequest -BatchName $BatchName
Write-Output ""

# Write reports if required
if ($ReportShare)
{
    Write-Output "Writing reports to $($ReportShare)"
    $Completed = Get-MailboxExportRequest -BatchName $BatchName | Where {$_.Status -eq "Completed"} | Get-MailboxExportRequestStatistics | Format-List
    if ($Completed)
    {
        $Completed | Out-File -FilePath "$($ReportShare)\$($BatchName)_Completed.txt"
    }
    $Incomplete = Get-MailboxExportRequest -BatchName $BatchName | Where {$_.Status -ne "Completed"} | Get-MailboxExportRequestStatistics | Format-List
    if ($Incomplete)
    {
        $Incomplete | Out-File -FilePath "$($ReportShare)\$($BatchName)_Incomplete_Report.txt"
    }
}

# Remove Requests
Write-Output "Removing requests created as part of batch '$($BatchName)'"
Get-MailboxExportRequest -BatchName $BatchName | Remove-MailboxExportRequest -Confirm:$false

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VB ITS

Export-Mailbox -Identity <mailbox-alias> -StartDate "01/01/2014" -EndDate "03/31/2014" -PSTFolderPath \\IP Address\folder\folder\username.pst

and all it did was bring me to: >>

Not sure if there was anything I was missing but I wanted to use this just to test how the export of one mailbox would go.

Usually when you receive a >> it means you may have forgotten to close off a command with the quotation marks.

e.g. You may have missed the " at the end of the -PSTFolderPath "\\IP Address\folder\folder\username.pst

By the way, the Export-Mailbox command won't work in Exchange 2013 - you'll need to use the New-MailboxExportRequest command however I'm not 100% sure this will work with Public Folders. The simplest solution would be to just export the PF data using Outlook. You can use filters to export a specific date range however doing this through Outlook will pretty much render it useless during the export process, so you'll basically need a spare machine with Office installed to use this method.