Bulk Import & Export of Mailboxes to/from PST

Before you begin trying to export or import PST files you need to assign a specific right to do so. Even if you are already an Exchange admin, you still need to do this step.

Prepare Your Account
Using the Exchange Management Shell execute the following code:

After the command completes you must close and re-open the Shell for the right to actually be assigned.

Export Mailboxes
You are now ready to export users mailboxes to PST. First create a list of the accounts to be exported. Use notepad and put each login name on one line. Name the file ExportSource.txt.

Create a script to do the actual export. Below is the simple code needed to do this (name the file ExportFromList.ps1. Be sure to change the parts in [red]red[/red]. Note that the destination MUST be a UNC path. I prefer to use an external hard drive I can quickly move to my destination server. THis prevents extra traffic on the network.

To Check status of exports run the following command:


If the exports fail there is likely corruption in the database.
You can allow the export to continue by altering the number of bad items.

To allow up to 50 bad items, add a -BadItemLimit. To increase the number of bad items higher than 50, you must also add -AcceptLargeDataLoss after the number of bad items. An example with both parameters added is below.


Import PSTs to Mailboxes

To import your newly exported PST file you just need to have them stored in a directory you can access via UNC path. Create a text file and put the following code in it. Edit the UNC path in the script and execute via PowerShell. Note that if you exported and are importing between different Exchange environments (migration) you must prepare your account as specified above.


Happy Scripting.