How to Restore a deleted Exchange mailbox from OST file even after 30 days

An exemplary feature of Exchange is its mailbox retention capability. When you remove a mailbox from the Exchange database; the Exchange defers the permanent deletion of the mailbox for a fixed span of time. The default time retention duration of the mailbox is 30 days. When a mailbox is deleted, Exchange retains the mailbox in the mailbox database, though the mailbox becomes inactive or out-of-action. The mailbox is not purged from the information store database immediately. It is only ensigned for deletion. You can permanently delete the mailbox by choosing it to purge at any time. The retention feature allows you to restore an erroneously deleted mailbox by recreating the user object and reconnecting it during 30 days from the date of deletion.

Following are the manual steps to Reconnect (or Restore) a Deleted Mailbox

• In Exchange System Manager, locate the mailbox store that contains the disconnected mailbox.
• Under the mailbox store, click the Mailboxes object.
• If the mailbox is not a disconnected (red X), right-click the Mailboxes object, and then choose Cleanup Agent.
• Right-click the disconnected mailbox, click Reconnect and then select the exact user from the dialog box that pops up. Click OK.

To connect it to an Active Directory user account, the EAC or the Exchange Management Shell can be used, but this procedure is only valid before the lapse of retention duration of 30 days.

However, even after the permanent deletion of your mailbox items, you can retrieve your important email items using the OST files. When using Outlook with Microsoft Exchange Server, it stores important items such as messages, contacts, appointments, tasks, in a mailbox that is located on the server. The replica of your account mailbox is stored in the form of a file in your hard disk which is called OST file. The OST file is linked to the user’s Exchange mailbox and a user can conveniently collect the user mailbox data from it. Outlook users come across challenging scenarios where they have to perform a manual recovery of mailbox items using OST files.

One of the most recommended solution for restoring disconnected mailboxes from OST files is OST to PST Converter Due to its dynamic features and user-friendly interface, it is widely used in conversion of OST files to PST.