How to Recover Deleted Exchange Mailbox?

While managing the mailboxes or performing maintenance tasks on Exchange Server, it might happen that you accidentally delete a mailbox. You may also delete mailbox to free some storage, when an employee leaves the company, or for any other reason. However, when you delete a mailbox, it is not immediately removed from the server. It remains on the server until the retention period (which is usually 30 days) is over. This means that you can recover the deleted mailbox, if required, within the retention period. In this article, we will be explaining the process to recover deleted mailbox from Exchange Server.

Process to Recover Deleted Exchange Mailbox

When you delete a mailbox, the associated Active Directory user account is also deleted. So, you need to connect the deleted mailbox to an Active Directory user or create a new user and then recover it. Follow the below step-by-step process to recover deleted Exchange mailbox.

Step 1: Connect the Deleted Mailbox to Active Directory User

First, you need to locate the deleted mailbox. For this, run the below command:

This will provide a list of all the mailboxes, including the disconnected and deleted ones. You can look for the deleted mailbox you want to recover and take a note of it.

Now, connect the deleted mailbox to a user account in the Active Directory. You can use Exchange Admin Center (EAC) to connect the deleted mailbox. Here are the steps:

• Open EAC and go to Recipients > Mailboxes.
• Click the More Options > Connect a mailbox.
• You will see a list of disconnected mailboxes on the selected Exchange Server.
• Select the deleted mailbox you want to connect to the user account and click Connect.
• Confirm your action by clicking Yes.
• User accounts that are not mail-enabled will appear on the screen.
• Select the user account to connect the deleted mailbox and click OK.

Alternatively, you can use PowerShell commands in Exchange Management Shell (EMS) to connect the deleted mailbox.

Open the EMS and run the Connect-Mailbox command as given below.

This command will connect the deleted user mailbox to a non-mail-enabled user account.

Step 2: Restore the Deleted Exchange Mailbox

You can recover the deleted Exchange mailbox by using the Exchange Management Shell (EMS). Here’s how:

First, you need to get some specific information about the deleted mailbox, including display name, mailbox GUID, and legacy distinguished name (DN). For this, run the following command in the EMS:

Next, type the New-MailboxRestoreRequest command as given below to recover the deleted Exchange mailbox.

The AllowLegacyDNMismatch parameter used in the command will recover the source mailbox to a different mailbox that doesn't have the same legacy DN value.

Once the process is complete, your deleted mailbox will be recovered to the chosen source mailbox.

An Easy and Quick Solution to Recover Deleted Exchange Mailbox

As you can see, the above process is quite lengthy and requires technical expertise for successful execution. However, an easy and quick way to recover deleted Exchange mailboxes is by using an advanced Exchange recovery software, such as Stellar Repair for Exchange. This Exchange recovery software can easily recover deleted mailboxes and deleted mail items from Exchange database files – be it offline or dismounted. After recovery, it saves the deleted mailbox to PST file or even directly export it to a live Exchange Server database. The software can also recover user mailboxes, archives, public folders, and other data from corrupted Exchange databases of any size.

Conclusion

Above, we have explained the stepwise process to recover deleted mailboxes using the native tools in Exchange Server. However, restoring the deleted mailboxes via Exchange Admin Center (EAC) or Exchange Management (EMS) is quite tedious and time-consuming. As an alternative, you can use an Exchange recovery software, like Stellar Repair for Exchange. It can help you find the deleted mailboxes in the database file and then restore them in just a few simple steps. It also allows you to create a new user, map the recovered mailbox, and then directly export it to the newly created mailbox.