Mailbox restore operations

By using Data Protection for Microsoft Exchange Server, you can restore an entire mailbox or selected mailbox items to the original mailbox, another online mailbox on the same server, or to a Unicode or non-Unicode .pst file.

Restriction:

For Exchange Server 2016 and later versions, non-Unicode .pst file is not supported.

The Recoverable Items folder is a storage area in a mailbox that contains operational data about the mailbox. Depending on the Exchange Server functions that you enabled for the mailbox, you can recover and restore the following types of mail items in the Recoverable Items folder:
  • Deleted item retention
  • Single item recovery
  • In-place hold
  • Litigation hold
  • Mailbox audit-logging
  • Calendar logging
Typically, a mailbox is set up to protect mail items from being accidentally or maliciously deleted, or to retrieve mail items during litigation or investigations.

Mailbox-enabled functions

You can verify whether a mailbox is enabled for mailbox restore operations by running the following Exchange Powershell cmdlets. In the examples, the mailbox is for George Clark:
Deleted item retention
Get-Mailbox "george clark" | FL RetentionHoldEnabled,
 RetainDeletedItemsFor, RetainDeletedItemsUntilBackup
Single item recovery
Get-Mailbox "george clark" | FL SingleItemRecoveryEnabled
In-place hold
Get-Mailbox "george clark" | FL InPlaceHolds
Litigation hold
Get-Mailbox "george clark" | FL LitigationHoldEnabled
Mailbox audit-logging
Get-Mailbox "george clark" | FL AuditEnabled,
 AuditLogAgeLimit
Calendar logging
Get-Mailbox "george clark" | FL CalendarVersionStoreDisabled

Mail items in the Recoverable Items folder

In the mailbox restore views in Microsoft Management Console (MMC), you can recover and restore mail items from the subfolders within the Recoverable Items folder. You can also complete this task by issuing the restoremailbox command. The following table lists the subfolders that are included in the Recoverable Items folder.
Table 1. Exchange Server 2013 Recoverable Items folder contents
Recoverable Items subfolder Mailbox-enabled functions Subfolder contents
Deletions Deleted item retention Contains mail items that a user deleted from the Deleted Items folder in their mailbox
Versions
  • In-place hold
  • Litigation hold
  • Single item recovery
 Contains the original and modified copies of the deleted mail items
Purges
  • Litigation hold
  • Single item recovery
 Contains all mail items that a user hard deleted, that is, purged from their mailbox
Audits Mailbox audit-logging Contains audit log entries
Discovery Holds In-place hold Contains mail items that are to be protected from deletion and match hold query parameters
Calendar Logging Calendar logging Contains calendar changes that occur within a mailbox
Restriction:
  • You cannot restore the Recoverable Items folder and subfolder hierarchy to a mailbox restore destination. You can restore only the contents of the email folders.
  • You cannot create a subfolder in the Recoverable Items folder in a mailbox.
  • You can restore the Recoverable Items content for a public folder mailbox but not for each public folder in the public folder mailbox.