How to Export Exchange Mailbox Items by Date Range to PST

Let’s start this topic with several use cases to understand the underlying purpose. Imagine you have to export all your Exchange emails to PST dated before 2023 to optimize your mailbox size for hassle-free migration. In the next scenario, suppose a legal authority wants to access all the emails that your CEO sent or received between 06/01/ 2025, and 10/31/2025, as part of an internal audit (Consider the US date format, MM/DD/YYYY).

In another case, your HR policy of your company requires you to retain the last 3 months of emails of an employee who resigned recently. What is common in all three cases? Yes, you guessed it right! It is the data range required to export your mailbox items to PST.

Many other such use cases may require you to export mailboxes and their items to PST for a specific period. Here is detailed information on how to do it manually and through an EDB to PST converter.

Manual Methods to Export Exchange Mailbox Items by Date Range to PST

You can export mailbox items from Exchange Server to PST through Exchange Admin Center (EAC) or PowerShell commands via Exchange Management Shell (EMS). However, EAC can export only full mailboxes but does not support filtering mailbox items by date range. Instead, this is possible with the help of the PowerShell cmdlet New-MailboxExportRequest. Another method is to use Outlook. In addition to these two ways, a third party EDB to PST converter can also prove effective in faster and easier migration of mailbox items by date range.

Using New-MailboxExportRequest to Export Mailbox items by Date Range to PST

To start the export, you should have the necessary permissions, even if you are an Active Directory administrator. Here are the requisite steps:

1. Command to create the role group:

New-RoleGroup “Mailbox Import-Export Management” -Roles “Mailbox Import Export”

2. Command to assign the user to the newly created role group

Add-RoleGroupMember “Mailbox Import-Export Management” -Member Administrator

Ensure you have created the share with the right permissions to host PST files from the export, which include:

• User Permission to export mailboxes
• Exchange Trusted Subsystem

Log on/off or restart the Exchange Management Shell the permissions to take effect.

3. Next, use the New-MailboxExportRequest cmdlet with the ContentFilter parameter. You will have to extract the sent, received or both the mail items from the Exchange according to your needs. Here are the examples:

New-MailboxExportRequest -ContentFilter {(Sent -lt ’06/01/2024′)} -Mailbox <MailboxName> -Filepath “UNC path of destination file”

Here, the parameter ‘lt’ refers to less than. Therefore, this command exports emails sent till 1^st June 2024.

4. In case of emails received before this date, replace ‘Sent’ with ‘Received’, as given in the example below:

New-MailboxExportRequest -ContentFilter {(Received -lt ’06/01/2024′)} -Mailbox <mailbox name> -Filepath “unc patch of destination file”After executing the request to send or receive emails before a particular date, you can track the status of the export request by using Get-MailboxExportRequest command. To test the working of the request, it is better to run the command for a single mailbox. If it works fine, you may run it for all the users one after another. Admins also use scripts to get all the mailboxes into a loop.

Using Outlook to Export Mailbox Items by Date Range

If the PowerShell commands appear too technical for you to implement, Outlook can be a comparably easier option to export Exchange mailbox items by date range. Outlook’s Import/Export feature allows you to export mailbox items to a PST file by date range. Follow the steps below:

• Launch Outlook
• Add the email account through which you want to export the mailbox items
• From the main menu, click File
• In the resulting window, click Open & Export on the left pane
• Select the third option, Import/Export, to open the Import/Export wizard
• Select the Export to a File option > Next
• Select Outlook Data File (.pst) option > Next
• In the Export Outlook Data File screen, look for the Filter button at the bottom right and click it
• In the Filter screen, look for the Time option and click the dropdown next to it.
• Select the required mail options, whether none, sent, received, due, expires, created, etc.
• Select the period which you want the mail items to export > OK > Next
• Choose the location to save the PST file
• Select any of the radio buttons to choose an option from duplicate items

• If you wish to encrypt the PST file, enter a password. Otherwise, leave the password field empty and click OK
• This will export the sent or received mailbox items to PST files in a few easy steps
• Enter a password if you want to encrypt the exported PST file. This step is optional. If you do not want to set a password, you can leave the password field empty and click on OK.

Using Stellar Converter for EDB to export mailbox items by date range

If you find PowerShell commands complicated or wish to find a better alternative to MS Outlook for mailbox item export by date range, you can try an EDB to PST converter tool. Here is why Stellar Converter for EDB scores an upper hand in this regard compared to manual methods:

• It allows automating exports from an Exchange version of EDB files without any file size limit.
• You can do the export offline; the Exchange Server does not need to be running for the task
• It does not require re-confirmation about the export of the right data from the right mailbox
• If the database is not mounted, you may still be able to export the mailboxes
• The EDB to PST converter tool lets you granularly export mailbox data to PST, live Exchange, or Office 365
• Features like parallel processing, priority exports automatic mailbox mapping make it different from others
• You may also use the application to export shared and disabled mailboxes and public folders, apart from exporting user mailboxes

Conclusion

The reason to export Exchange Server mailbox items by date range can be various. For instance, you would like to extract the emails of employees who have resigned within a particular duration. Likewise, you may want to clear the space on the server to make way for new emails. To serve the purpose, you can execute several PowerShell commands or use the Microsoft Outlook export wizard.

Both methods can help you to successfully export the mailbox items within a specific duration. However, these manual methods can be cumbersome, especially when running commands in the Exchange Management Shell. Before practicing these methods, you should have the necessary permissions and roles assigned for the export task.

Using an EDB to PST converter tool sets you free from such obligations. For example, the Stellar Converter for EDB software lets you export the mailbox items by date range in a breeze. You can buy the software right from the Stellar Info website. Widely recommended by admins and MVPs of renowned organizations, it adds pace and precision to your EDB to PST conversion tasks.