Exchange 2010 SP1 introduces a new method to export and import mailbox data. Instead of forcing administrators to run Outlook on a mailbox server so as to be able to use Outlook’s ability to read and write PSTs, Exchange 2010 SP1 contains brand-new code for PST access and eliminates any need to run Outlook. This is a very good thing as it’s always best not to run applications designed for client computers on servers.
The new code is exposed through a set of cmdlets that mimic the approach taken for mailbox moves. In other words, you create a new request to export or import data, you can manipulate or view properties of a request, you can fetch request statistics, remove a request from the queue, and so on. The actual processing of the requests is performed by the Exchange Mailbox Replication Service (MRS) running on a Client Access Server (CAS), just like mailbox moves.
We are still getting used to the new implementation and it’s not surprising that we’re still discovering the breadth of the capabilities provided by its developers. One such example occurred recently when the question was posed as to the best way to export data for a particular date range. I think this is likely to be a pretty common request as you obviously don’t want to be forced to export the complete contents of a mailbox unless absolutely necessary, especially as mailboxes get larger and larger. No only would such an export take longer than required for a subset, it also exposes additional possibility that confidential user data might be compromised inadvertently. In other words, the fewer items that you export from a mailbox, the less chance that any item might be viewed by someone other than its owner.
At first glance, the set of available parameters for the New-MailboxExportRequest cmdlet don’t seem to include anything that can help, until you notice the hidden gem that’s buried in the ContentFilter parameter.
“For more information about filterable properties, see Filterable Properties for the -ContentFilter Parameter.“
There’s a huge range of filterable properties that can be explored. For this purpose the best parameter is “Received”, which takes date stamps as its input and allows you to search for items that match a particular date span.
Note: The New-MailboxImportRequest cmdlet does not support a ContentFilter parameter. This might be because it’s easier to implement a filter like this when dealing with server-based data that is already indexed (Exchange 2010 indexes every item in every mailbox automatically) whereas applying a filter to information held in a PST wouldn’t be as effective or efficient. The PST file format is, after all, not the greatest structure that the world of IT has ever seen.
As an example of date range filtering in action with New-MailboxExportRequest, this code looks for any item (in any folder) that has a received date in the range 2 March 2010 to 31 March 2010 from the “Pelton” mailbox [this is an update from the original post - see Matt's comment below]. Any items that are found are exported to a PST in the specified file share (FilePath). See this post for more information about configuring a network file share as a repository for mailbox import and export requests.
New-MailboxExportRequest -ContentFilter {(Received -lt '04/01/2010') -and (Received -gt '03/01/2010')} -Mailbox "Pelton" -Name DPeltonExp -FilePath \\ExServer1\Imports\DPelton.pst
Exporting a date range of items using New-MailboxExportRequest
Unfortunately there’s no GUI available for the New-MailboxImportRequest, New-MailboxExportRequest, and their associated cmdlets so everything has to be done through the Exchange Management Shell (EMS). Such is life. The good thing is that the possibility exists to export items using a date range and that we’ve learned more about the potential that lurks behind the ContentFilter parameter, but only for mailbox exports.
- Tony
Notice: This is the kind of thing that we really dive into during our Exchange 2010 Maestro training events. The last 3-day event for 2011 will be held in Greenwich, CT next week. Some slots are still available. Sign up here!
Hi Tony,
Your syntax is not entirely correct, you say that your export command will grab March 1 – April 1, however in reality it grabs everything between March 1 – April 1 (March 2 – March 31).
I use -ge (greater-than-or-equal-to) instead of -gt (greater-than) on the first day, this will always give you the full month of March. Of course if you needed to include April 1 as well you could use -le (less-than-or-equal-to) on the “high” side of the range in place of -lt (less-than).
PS> New-MailboxExportRequest -ContentFilter {(Received -lt ’04/01/2010′) -and (Received -ge ’03/01/2010′)} -Mailbox “Pelton” -Name DPeltonExp -FilePath \\ExServer1\Imports\DPelton.pst
Also you stated that will grab any item in any folder, it is important to note that this will not include sent items, since they were never “Received”. Below will grab both sent and received from all folders within the month of March.
PS> New-MailboxExportRequest -ContentFilter {(Received -lt ’04/01/2010′) -and (Received -ge ’03/01/2010′) -or (Sent -lt ’04/01/2010′) -and (Sent -ge ’03/01/2010′)} -Mailbox “Pelton” -Name DPeltonExp -FilePath \\ExServer1\Imports\DPelton.pst
-matt
Good catch and I appreciate you sharing your knowledge with the community. Thanks Matt!
Hello
I’ve got problem with use this in a script. It is look like:
$Date=Read-Host
New-MailboxExportRequest -Mailbox user -FilePath \\server\A$\User.pst -ContentFilter {(Received -lt ‘$Date’) -and (Sent -lt ‘$Date’)}
There is a problem with using variable $Date in ContentFilter.
———————
Error:
The provided ContentFilter value is invalid. ContentFilter is invalid. The value “$Date” could not be converted to type System.DateTime. –> The value “$Date” could not be converted to type System.DateTime.
———————
I tried with: ‘$Date’, $Date, “$Date” … still the same problem.
Do you have any idea how to solve this problem?
Kind Regard
Tomasz
PowerShell is complaining because the string in the $Date variable isn’t a valid date… I think you need some code to capture the date and format it properly to make New-MailboxExportRequest happy. Something like the code in http://powershell.com/cs/blogs/tips/archive/2008/12/31/converting-user-input-to-date.aspx should help.
TR
Hi Tomaz,
I had the same problem. The problem turned out to be the {} if you replace those with “” it will work just fine…
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/exchangesvradmin/thread/52866982-94b1-4e08-ae0d-9e42c88c9ae8
I consider it either a documentation bug or a real bug… The help files reference using the curly braces, which is I am sure where you got it from (as did I).
-matt
Is it possilble to MOVE the messages to the PST rather than just copying them?
It would be a two stage process. First, copy the messages to the PST and then search the mailbox (using Search-Mailbox) for the same messages and remove the content (pass the DeleteContent parameter)
TR
My export command and search results command are producing different results. Would you happen to know why?
In my Test scenario there should be exactly 1 message that is exported from this query. It is not exported. The search query does delete 1 message however.
Export:
New-MailboxExportRequest -ContentFilter {(Received -ge ’02/01/2012′) -and (Received -le ’02/08/2012′)} -Mailbox “MailboxName” -Name MailboxExportName –FilePath “Path to PST”
Search:
Search-Mailbox MailboxName -SearchQuery “Received:>= $(’02/01/2012′) and Received:<= $('02/08/2012')" -DeleteContent
The commands look good. It’s impossible to understand why you’re seeing a difference without examining the properties of the item.
TR
I got it. I needed to include the time stamp as well.
New-MailboxExportRequest -ContentFilter {(Received -ge ’02/01/2012 00:00:00′) -and (Received -le ’02/10/2012 23:59:59′)} -Mailbox “MailboxName” -Name MailboxExportName –FilePath “Path to PST”
Great stuff. Thanks for updating. Looks like there’s a difference in sensitivity between the two sets of cmdlets. I’ll let the Exchange team know.
TR
I have a furter question about the need to “Move” ….
Previously with Export-Mailbox I could use the Deletecontent parameter in a single command line, is this still possible with the new cmdlet?
To be fair, I don’t know if the previous syntax actually ran the process twice (ie once to export and then repeated to delete), or whether it did it as one operation.
Reason I need this, I have a few users with massive mailboxes that I need to export by year to a pst file to hand back to them (they are not capable of doing this themselves – read “senior management”)
Cheers
S
You can’t delete content with New-MailboxExportRequest… you’ll have to export the data and then delete it with Search-Mailbox!
TR
Thanks Tony – at least the new process seems to run a lot faster than the previous method, so although it’s a two step procedure, it is quicker overall.
I guess I need to look at scripting it into one action – not my forte, but might as well bite the bullet !
Rgds
S
Hi Tony – I was hoping you can help me with an issue I’m having when running the following command:
New-MailboxExportRequest -ContentFilter {(Received -lt ’10/21/2011 11:59:00 PM’) -and (Received -ge ’10/20/2011 12:00:00 AM’)} -Mailbox “mailbox2011″ -Name mailbox2011Exp -FilePath “\\server\2011Exp\2011export.pst”
‘m getting a “The value “21/10/2011 11:59:00 PM” could not be convered to type System.DateTime.
Any suggestion as to what is the problem with the command? Thank in advance for your assistance.
Hi Fred,
I noticed a couple of things…
1) I am assuming that you are in a country (or using a keymap from) where dates are commonly referred to DD/MM/YYYY instead of the more US way of MM/DD/YYYY. I am making this guess based on the inversion of the date in the error. So I would try to flip that around in your command.
New-MailboxExportRequest -ContentFilter {(Received -lt ’21/10/2011 11:59:00 PM’) -and (Received -ge ’20/10/2011 12:00:00 AM’)} -Mailbox “mailbox2011″ -Name mailbox2011Exp -FilePath “\\server\2011Exp\2011export.pst”
2) I think you might have the same problem as Tomasz above, try replacing your {} with “” around your content filter. If you are not running this in a script, then it is most likely the first option.
New-MailboxExportRequest -ContentFilter “(Received -lt ’10/21/2011 11:59:00 PM’) -and (Received -ge ’10/20/2011 12:00:00 AM’)” -Mailbox “mailbox2011″ -Name mailbox2011Exp -FilePath “\\server\2011Exp\2011export.pst”
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/exchangesvradmin/thread
Also /52866982-94b1-4e08-ae0d-9e42c88c9ae8
Tony, thanks for the prompt response. I’m actually located in Canada, so I believe I’m using the right date format. I tried your suggestions without avail, on both instances I get the following:
The provided ContentFilter value is invalid. ContentFilter is invalid. Invalid filter syntax. For a description of the
filter parameter syntax see the command help.
“(Received -lt ’10/21/2011 11:59:00 PM’) -and (Received -ge ’10/20/2011 12:00:00 AM’)” at position 15. –> Invalid filt
er syntax. For a description of the filter parameter syntax see the command help.
“(Received -lt ’10/21/2011 11:59:00 PM’) -and (Received -ge ’10/20/2011 12:00:00 AM’)” at position 15.
+ CategoryInfo : InvalidArgument: ((Received -lt ‘…1 12:00:00 AM’):String) [], ContentFilterInvalidPerm
anentException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : 969E9606
All I want to do is to be able to export data from a mailbox based on date. Any other suggestions are greatly appreciated.
This worked for me… Exchange 2010 SP2 RU2:
New-MailboxExportRequest -ContentFilter {(Received -ge ’10/20/2011 00:00:01′) -and (Received -le ’10/21/2011 23:59:59′)} -Mailbox “Mailbox2011” -Name Mailbox2011 –FilePath “\\server\2011Exp\2011export.pst”
Tony, still got the same error I posted in my previous reply.
Hi Fred,
Right now I don’t have access to a server and won’t have until I come back from TEC in San Diego. So I am limited to the Internet (for those that are interested, Exchange Online in Office 365 doesn’t support the New-MailboxExportRequest cmdlet for tenant administrators, for obvious reasons). I suggest that we go back to first principles and consult TechNet. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff601762.aspx provides advice as to the correct use of the -ContentFilter parameter. The example offered there is:
-ContentFilter {(Sent -lt ’01/01/2010′) -and (Sent -gt ’01/01/2009′)}
Try using that (just to get the syntax right) and then move on to change the “Sent” to “Received” (shouldn’t be an issue), the comparison operators from “gt” to “ge” (can’t see an issue there). Make sure that syntax works for you. Finally, change the dates. This step by step method will prove each element of the command.
Sorry that I can’t do more to help but the demands of travel make it impossible.
TR
Tony, that’s great info and much appreciated. I’ll go through it, btw good idea in changing the background on you blog as it was a bit difficult to read with the provious one.
Anyone ever come up with a New-MailboxExportRequest command that exported e-mails from a specific folder like SENT ITEMS, that were also of a specific DATE RANGE?
It doesn’t seem that New-MailboxExportRequest has a switch for this? This used to be doable including deleting those e-mails from the folder before the implemented SP1. Please tell the Exchange team bring this back!
I’ve tried the Sent filter only and it also retrieves all e-mails “sent TO” the mailbox owner (e.g. John Doe) at the specified date range. I only want to extract the e-mails specifically sent BY the mailbox owner. (e.g. All e-mails sent by John Doe and not including any e-mails sent TO John Doe. It’s just so frustrating… I’ve been going into the mailboxes of users through OWA to do this manually… painful.
Any help would be very much appreciated.
Well, the -IncludeFolders parameter for New-MailboxExportRequest will allow you to limit the export to just one or more specific folders, including Sent Items, and the -ContentFilter parameter allows you to specify a date range. Have you tried playing with these parameters? The ContentFilter accepts a filter such as Sender -eq “Tony” to extract messages specifically from one person. I’m afraid that I can’t be of more help as I’m on the road (Atlanta airport, actually).
TR
I believe I may be going loopy here
My version of Exchange 2010 SP2 RU2 does not seem to have the New-MailboxExportRequest cmdlet available….Version 14.2 (Build 247.5)
I believe in one of the comments above you mentioned you are also running this build and it works fine for you?
I get the following error:
The term ‘New-MailboxExportRequest’ is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program.
The term ‘Get-MailboxExportRequest’ is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program.
Hi,
If you don’t assign the RBAC “Mailbox Import-Export” role to your account, you won’t see the cmdlets available to you when you attempt to run them. This looks like you have run into the problem because the role is not assigned automatically, even to organization administrators.
From page 749 of my book:
New-ManagementRoleAssignment –Group ‘Group allowed to Import Export Mailboxes’
–Role ‘Mailbox Import Export’
TR
Ha! Spot on, I completely forgot to give myself the MB Export Role…
Thanks!
Great book by the way.
Great. Always good when a theory works…