Starting from rom Exchange 2010 SP1 there is an option, by a powershell command, to export an entire mailbox or even part of it to a .pst file. The operation can come handy as a method to store a mailbox before you completely delete it from the organization.
The command is very simple:
New-MailboxExportRequest -Mailbox username -FilePath “\Servershareusername.pst”
Keep in mind that the export destination must be a network share.
Official help page: http://technet.microsoft.com/it-it/library/ff607299%28v=exchg.150%29.aspx
The thing that is not told explicitly in the help however is that, by default, the command will return an error: “MailboxExportRequest” is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program”
This is because by default also the administrator user does not have permission to perform a mailbox export. Frankly I do not find much logic in this (I mean… I am the organization administrator!)…. plus the error does not address the real problem since it seems to have launched a wrong command.
To solve simply assign the right role to the user with which we are trying to export the mailbox:
New-ManagementRoleAssignment –Role “Mailbox Import Export” –User “domainusername”
At this point you have to wait a few seconds and then close and reopen the powershell.