2

My company has Exchange 2013 and I disabled a mailbox in the Exchange Admin Center under the presumption that this would work in the same way as disabling an account in Active Directory would. (Ability to re-enable the account at any time).

I just went looking in the recipient list to see if I could re-enable the disabled account however, it is totally missing.

Is it possible to recover the mailbox? What is the process?

pgunston
  • 311
  • 4
  • 6
  • 16

2 Answers2

4

Disabled mailboxes do not show up in the main view. To reconnect a disabled mailbox:

In the EAC, navigate to Recipients > Mailboxes.

Click More, and then click Connect a mailbox.

A list of mailboxes that are disconnected on the selected Exchange server in your Exchange organization will be displayed.

Note: This list of disconnected mailboxes includes disabled mailboxes, deleted mailboxes, and soft-deleted mailboxes.

Click the disabled mailbox that you want to reconnect, and then click Connect.

In the window that asks if you’re sure that you want to reconnect the mailbox, click Yes.

Exchange will reconnect the disabled mailbox to the corresponding user account.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj863439(v=exchg.150).aspx

If you cannot see the mailbox when trying to reconnect, run the following in the Exchange Management Shell.

Get-MailboxStatistics -Database "DB NAME" | ForEach { Update-StoreMailboxState -Database $_.Database -Identity $_.MailboxGuid -Confirm:$false }
pgunston
  • 311
  • 4
  • 6
  • 16
Josh Vazquez
  • 66
  • 6
  • Thanks for this answer. I followed your instructions however, the mailbox did not appear in the 'connect a mailbox' window. – pgunston Jul 16 '15 at 23:53
  • How long ago did you disable it? – Josh Vazquez Jul 16 '15 at 23:53
  • Within the last hour. – pgunston Jul 17 '15 at 00:12
  • Exchange keeps disconnected mailboxes for 30 days (by default), so it should still be stored. Please confirm the mailbox retention period by looking for DeletedItemRetention or anything related to that in the output of the following Exchange PowerShell command: Get-MailboxDatabase -Identity YourDBName | Format-List Also try the Shell method in the link above and see if it succeeds. – Josh Vazquez Jul 17 '15 at 00:23
  • I fixed the problem by running `Get-MailboxStatistics -Database "DB NAME" | ForEach { Update-StoreMailboxState -Database $_.Database -Identity $_.MailboxGuid -Confirm:$false }` Prior to following your solution. – pgunston Jul 17 '15 at 00:29
  • Good find, looks like it might have been caused by slow AD replication since you disabled it so recently. More information for anyone interested [here](https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj860462(v=exchg.150).aspx). – Josh Vazquez Jul 17 '15 at 01:07
0

You can identify disabled mailboxes in the exchange organization from below command:

Get-MailboxDatabase | Get-MailboxStatistics | Where { $_.DisconnectReason -eq “Disabled” } | ft DisplayName,Database,DisconnectDateUse

Steps to recover a deleted mailbox:

  1. Having an enabled AD user to attach it to
  2. Use Exchange Management Shell (EMS) to Run Connect-Mailbox cmdlet

enter image description here  3. After connecting the mailbox, you can export it using the New-MailboxExportRequest cmdlet. You can also check this link.

Eric Simson
  • 78
  • 4