Ways to Extract Exchange Mailbox Data from EDB to PST

Himanshu Goyal | Updated On - April 21, 2023 |

Read time 10 minutes

Microsoft Exchange Server is an essential mail server for organizations to manage day-to-day emailing and other organizational activities. All the Exchange mailboxes and items such as emails, contacts, calendars, and notes are stored in EDB file format. So, the EDB files are very crucial for the functioning of the server.

The Exchange Administrator can create a new database in Exchange Admin Center with some simple steps –

1. Go to Servers section in Exchange Admin Center.
2. In databases category, click on New (+) button to create a new database.
3. In the database creation wizard, provide a name to the database.
4. Choose the corresponding server.
5. Browse the location for saving the database file. You can change the default location.
6. Click Save and it will prompt a warning to restart the Exchange Serve before accessing new EDB file.
7. After restarting the server, you can see a new database in databases category.

However, the Exchange database often get corrupt due to various reasons like virus infections, hard drive failures, dirty shutdown errors, or system failures. Although it’s very rare, it can damage your Exchange database and make mailboxes inaccessible. Therefore, the EDB file must be repaired immediately, or you should extract Exchange database from the EDB file. You can Run ESEUTIL for EDB Repair.

Recommended: Get Kernel for Exchange Recovery tool to repair inaccessible EDB file and extract your complete data from EDB file to PST.

In this post, we will talk about the manual as well as automated approaches to extract Exchange mailboxes data from EDB files. But, before that, let’s have a look at the below points to understand why you need to extract Exchange mailboxes from EDB files.

Reason to Extract Exchange Mailboxes from EDB

• To access mailbox contents from orphaned or dismounted database file.
• To access shared, archive, or public folder separately from primary mailbox.
• To transfer individual mailboxes to new database or Exchange Server.
• Accessing EDB files even without connecting to Exchange Server
• To access data when the Exchange database cannot be mounted
• The log files on the system get deleted

In the above scenarios, it is crucial to extract exchange mailboxes from EDB file. Below are some of the most effective methods to extract exchange database from EDB files.

Generally, there are three manual methods to extract Exchange mailboxes from EDB file. Here, we will talk about all three methods:

Both the ExMerge utility and EMS PowerShell cmdlets have some drawbacks, such as one can only be used for Exchange 2003, has a lengthy procedure, etc. So, to overcome these limitations, there is one more method to extract EDB files to PST via the Exchange Admin Center.

However, this method can only be used to extract Exchange mailboxes from EDB for recent Exchange versions like Exchange Server 2013, 2016 and 2019. Follow the below steps to know how to extract EDB file via the Exchange admin center.

1. Go to Exchange Online and open Exchange Admin Center. Now, go to recipients and select mailboxes. A list of mailboxes will appear on your screen.
   
2. Right-click on the mailbox that you want to extract to PST, and then choose Export to a PST file option.
   
3. The Export to PST dialogue box will appear on the screen. Now, browse and select the desired mailbox with the required option and click Next.
   
4. Select a location where you want to save the Exchange mailbox data and click Next to continue.
   
5. In the next step, check the checkbox for email notification, provide the name of the mailbox to receive mailbox notification and click Finish.
   

The mailboxes have been extracted to the desired location. Once the export process is finished, you’ll receive a confirmation message in the specified PST mailbox. But there are some drawbacks of using the Exchange Admin Center to extract EDB file to PST, such as:

• You need administrative privileges to perform this procedure
• It cannot recover corrupt mailbox data
• Cannot be performed for earlier versions of Exchange

Seeing all these limitations on manual methods, users often get confused about how to extract EDB files to PST. Well, we have an automated solution for your conversion.

It is another free method to extract Exchange mailboxes from EDB files. Using Exchange Management Shell, you can extract EDB file to PST in Exchange Server 2007 and later versions. EMS uses PowerShell cmdlets to free convert EDB file to PST. Here we will discuss how to extract EDB file to PST in Exchange Server 2016.

Go to Exchange Management Shell and use PowerShell cmdlet “New-MailboxExportRequest.” Use the below syntax for PowerShell cmdlets.

Here, use the mailbox name that you want to extract and enter the specific location where you want to extract EDB file. For example,

Exchange Management Shell works as an EDB Extractor and allows you to save it to PST. But, there are some limitations to it, such as:

• It requires a sound knowledge of EMS cmdlets
• Cannot recover mailboxes from corrupt EDB file
• The mailbox must be mounted on Exchange Server

ExMerge, the Microsoft Exchange Server Mailbox Merge Wizard, extracts the mailbox data from one Exchange Server’s mailbox and merges it into another mailbox running on a different Exchange Server. It copies the data from the mailbox as a separate PST file, then merges the data into another mailbox.

Use ExMerge can function on both single and multiple mailboxes, and it is smart enough to filter the mailbox content by various criteria. The tool will check the folders for duplicate items and skip them.

Download the free tool from the following URL –

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=2743

The user interface of the tool is a wizard-like interface and shows multiple options on the single screen. Here is the process:

1. The first screen shows the two options. Choose the first option Extract data from an Exchange Server Mailbox.
   
2. Provide the Exchange Server name and click the Next button.
   
3. The Data Selection Criteria page offers useful filters for the whole data. The filter tabs are Data, Import Procedure, Folders, Dates, and Message Details. In each tab, there are multiple options to filter the data. Click Apply and start the process.
   

Limitations of ExMerge tool

1. The tool fails to migrate PST files with more than 2 GB in size.
2. it skips the corrupt email message present in the file.
3. Unicode PST files are not recoverable using the ExMerge tool.
4. Older versions of ExMerge do not support non-email like calendar, contacts, notes, tasks, journal, etc.

It is a significant utility that allows users to extract Exchange data from EDB files to PST. Not only that, it is enriched with some fantastic features that enable users to extract EDB to PST based on specific requirements. Now, let’s see how this tool works to understand its functionality better.

1. Download the software and launch on your system.
   Download trial 100% Secure

   

2. Select Offline EDB as source type on the software home screen and click Next.
   
3. Browse and select the EDB file that you want to extract to PST and click Next.
   
   Note: You can also search for EDB files using the search feature.
4. Choose the suitable scanning mode to scan for any errors in the EDB file and click Next.
   
5. The EDB file mailboxes are added to the tool. You can check its mailboxes in the left pane of the tool. Now, right-click on the root directory of added EDB file and select Export Mailboxes to PST.
   
6. Select the mailboxes that you want to extract to PST. Browse a saving location, and then click Export.
   
   Note: To convert mailboxes based on their date and item type, click Filters to apply specific filters to the mailboxes.
7. It will take some time for the extraction process based on the size of EDB files. Once it is done, a notification will appear on your screen displaying:
   
   Click OK to complete the process.
8. A new window will appear on the screen displaying the details of the mailboxes that are extracted to PST. Click OK to finish the process.
   

This way you can easily extract EDB files to PST using smart converter software for Exchange database files.

Conclusion

Extracting Exchange mailboxes data from EDB files is very crucial for organizations, as it allows them to save their Exchange data from any type of data loss. Also, extracting EDB file to PST allows you to migrate EDB mailboxes to Office 365 or keep the PST file as a backup. But there are some limitations for manual methods. So, you should use converter tool that enables users to easily convert EDB file to PST.