Exchange Granular Restore

This section explains how to perform an Exchange Granular Restore using a System Protection, File Protection or File Archiving backup. Exchange Granular Restore will restore individual mail items from an Exchange Server database or PST file.

This feature requires the Exchange Granular add-on

To restore Exchange mail items, follow these 3 steps:

Step 1 - Locate the Exchange backup

  1. Select the File/Apps tab
  2. The Files\Apps tab has a Home page and a Tools page. The Home page is the default page and the starting point for performing a restore. The Tools page should only be used by experienced users or with the assistance of BackupAssist Technical Support.

  3. Select Exchange Granular Restore
  4. This starts the guided restore process and will take you to the Exchange Granular restore console. There is a Learn more about Restore link at the bottom of the screen.

  5. Select the database
  6. The Exchange Granular Restore screen displays the Exchange backups created by this installation of BackupAssist. Click on a backup’s name to show the Exchange databases in that backup, and the select the required database.

Step 2 - Locate the mail items

The Exchange Granular Restore console has a Browse mail tree and a Search field to help locate, preview and select the mail items that you want to restore.

The Options menu

The Exchange Granular Restore console's Options menu has selections that effect the mail items shown when using the Browse and Search options to locate mail items. The Options menu should be reviewed before looking for a mail item.

Using Browse

You can locate a mail item by browsing through the Exchange database in the console's left pane. Browsing for the items you want to restore is ideal when you know the mail item's location.

Using Search

You can locate a mail item by using the console's Search field. Searching for the items you want to restore is ideal when you do not know the mail item's location. Clicking in the Search box opens a drop-down dialog that can be used to enter search criteria.

Step 3 - Perform the restore

Once you have located the required mail items, there are three ways they can be restored using Exchange Granular Restore: Restore to original location, Restore to alternate location and Export to PST.

Note: When you restore individual emails or a mailbox, RESTORED will appear in the Subject line of each email. This is enabled by default and can be turned off by selecting Options > Add 'RESTORED' to exported item > No.

Option : Restore to original location

This option will restore the selected mail items back into their respective mailboxes on the original Exchange Server.

  1. Select the Restore to original location button.
  2. A Restore to original location window will open. The domain name of the server running Exchange will be automatically detected if you are on the same domain.

  3. If no Exchange Server was detected, fill in the Server name field and click Reconnect.
  4. It is possible to restore data to someone else’s mailbox using Exchange Impersonation. To do this, the current user credentials must have Exchange Impersonation access to the destination mailbox.

    To learn more, see Exchange Impersonation

  5. Select Restore to begin the restore process.
  6. A progress window will be displayed during the restore. The window shows the number of folders, messages and errors. You can enable and disable the progress window in the Options menu.

Option : Restore to alternate location

This option will restore the emails and mail items from the offline backup to a live Exchange database that is different to the one they were backed up from.

  1. Select the Connect to Exchange Mailbox button.
  2. The Connect to Exchange Mailbox button opens the connection dialog. This is used to provide the Exchange Server name and the authentication details for a specific mailbox on that server. This process can be repeated for additional mailboxes.

  3. Restore mail items to an alternate location
  4. There are two ways to restore mail items to the alternate location. You can drag and drop the files from the backup to the restore destination, or select the mail items and then use the Restore to alternate location button.

Option : Export to PST

Export to PST will save your selected data in a PST file, which can be opened by outlook to access the mail items.

  1. Confirm the Personal Storage Table (PST) format
  2. You can choose Unicode or ANSI encoding for the PST output file using the Options menu.

  3. Select the , Export to PST button
  4. This button will become active once the mail items have been selected.

  5. Select the destination.
  6. You will be asked to select a folder or create a new folder. After selecting the new or existing folder, the export will begin.

  7. Open the exported mail items in Outlook.
  8. Restore the exported items to the Exchange Server.
  9. Items extracted from an offline Exchange mail store can be restored to a live server.