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How to Move Exchange Mailbox to Another Database Securely?

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Published By Karen Chard 
Rollins Duke
Approved By Rollins Duke
Published On January 10th, 2025
Reading Time 7 Min Read

Summary- Do you want to move Exchange mailbox to another database, but don’t know where or how to start it? If you answer yes, you’ve come to the right article. In this write-up, we will discuss how to migrate Exchange mailbox to new database with complete details and securely. So, without wasting any more time, let’s start with the article.

Whether you’re performing this moving process to optimize your server or migrating from on-premise to a cloud platform and vice versa. However, most of the time many Exchange Admins always try to optimize their Exchange Servers. It helps them to keep their Exchange Server in good health and also avoid unnecessary expenses on servers.

But when the size of the mailbox database increases, the admins choose to move Exchange mailbox to another database to reduce the Exchange Server database size. Therefore, in this technical write-up, we will explain multiple manual solutions and automated solutions to transfer Exchanger Mailbox to another database with complete information easily and securely. So, stay with this article until the end to learn approaches to complete this moving process.

Why Users Want to Migrate Exchange Mailbox to New Database?

There are various reasons why users wish to move Exchange mailbox to another database. Below we have listed some of the common causes that specify why users want to perform this moving procedure.

  • In some situations when two different organizations combine and need to merge their email database according to the new organizational structure. In such cases, mailboxes must be transferred from one database to another Exchange server.
  • When companies need to migrate Exchange mailboxes to new database, they must follow several legal and regulatory criteria. For example, law firms need to preserve a backup of client communications for five years.
  • Many admins move mailboxes to perform maintenance or upgrade their current database without disturbing all users at once.
  • If a database is running out of storage space, moving mailboxes to a new database can help you manage storage space more effectively.
  • To reduce the chance of a disaster, it is highly recommended that mailbox data be stored in a backup database at all times. Assume an organization has some corrupted blocks in its main database. Moving the mailbox to another database makes sure users experience little disturbance.

Top 3 Methods to Move Exchange Mailbox to Another Database

In this section, we are going to explain the top 3 best approaches to transfer Exchange mailbox to another database. However, before going to these methods, make sure that you have an active and stable internet connection. Secondly, ensure that you have all the necessary admin credentials to perform this moving process completely. Before starting the process, have a look on the comparison between manual and expert methods:

Methods Technical Knowledge Difficulty Effectiveness
Exchange Admin Center (EAC) High High Moderate
Exchange Management Shell (EMS) High High Moderate
Automated Technique Low Low High

#1: Transfer User Mailbox to Another Exchange Database with EAC

  1. Login to your Exchange Admin Center with admin details.
  2. Go to the “Recipients” tab >> “Migration” tab.
  3. Click on the “+” icon and choose “Move to a different database”.
  4. Then, add the user you want to move and click “Next”.
  5. Enter a migration batch name and enable options to move the primary mailbox and archive mailbox, if available.
  6. Press “Browse”, choose the destination database, and set the bad item limit.
  7. Click “Next”, then specify who should receive the report after the batch is completed.
  8. Finally, go to the Mailboxes section and refresh to check the status of the mailbox move.

#2: Move Exchange Mailbox to Another Database Using EMS

  1. Open Exchange Management Shell (EMS) as an administrator.
  2. Use the command [Get-Mailbox -Identity “MailboxName”] to check the details of the mailbox you want to move.
  3. Run the [Get-MailboxStatistics -Identity “MailboxName” | Format-List Database] command to confirm the current database of the mailbox.
  4. Move the mailbox to the desired database by using the [New-MoveRequest -Identity “MailboxName” -TargetDatabase “TargetDatabaseName”] command.
  5. Now, you can check moving request status by running the [Get-MoveRequest -Identity “MailboxName” | Get-MoveRequestStatistics] command.
  6. Once the moving process is complete, now to clear the request you can run the [Remove-MoveRequest -Identity “MailboxName”] command.
  7. In the end, to verify whether the mailbox is now in the new database or not simply use the [Get-Mailbox -Identity “MailboxName” | Format-List Database] command.

Why are Manual Solutions Not Recommended?

As we can see both of the manual solutions come with multiple steps, which may confuse many users. Also, these solutions take a lot of effort and time. Moreover, you must have technical knowledge about these solutions to follow the steps, if you mistakenly make a small error while following the procedure, then you may face data loss or corruption. Therefore, many experts don’t recommend manual solutions to move Exchange mailbox to another database.

However, if you want a quick, secure, and reliable solution to complete this migrate then you can use an automated solution to complete this moving procedure. In the below section, we have explained the professional solution in complete detail. Let’s take a look.

3: Move Exchange Mailbox to Another Database Automatically

RecoveryTools Email Backup Software is an expert-recommended toolkit to migrate Exchange Mailbox to new database without facing any restrictions easily. This is a robust, safe, and powerful solution and it provides multiple advanced filtration options to migrate transfer mailbox to new database selectively.

Moreover, with the help of this utility, you can easily move your large Exchange mailbox into another database without facing any size limitations. Also, this toolkit can maintain all your mailbox components, formatting, and hierarchy during the moving process.

How to Move Exchange Mailbox to Another Database Quickly?

  1. Download, install, and run the recommended software on your local system.

    run the recommended software

  2. Now, choose your Email Source as “Exchange Server” or “Hosted Exchange Server” from the list.

    email Source

  3. Next, enter the server credentials of the mailbox account from which you want to move the mailbox in the given box.

    server credentials

  4. From here, choose the required mailboxes that you want to transfer and press “Next” icon.

    required mailboxes

  5. Thereafter, select the saving option as “Exchange Server” or “Hosted Exchange Server” from the drop-down menu.

    saving option

  6. Now, go to “Filters Options” and apply filters as per your need to move Exchange mailbox to another database selectively.

    apply filters

  7. After that, enter your destination database mailbox account credentials given boxes.

    destination database mailbox

  8. In the end, press the “Backup” button and you can see the live transfer process. Wait for the process to complete the transfer of the Exchange mailbox to the new database.

    move exchange mailbox to another database

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Conclusion

In this write-up, we have discussed how to move Exchange mailbox to another database without losing any details. Here we have explained multiple manual solutions and an automated solution to complete this moving process. As we have seen the manual approaches come with various drawbacks, which are not good options for you. Therefore, it’s a wise option to go with the automated solution to migrate Exchange mailbox to new database securely and quickly. Moreover, the automated solution provides a free trial version of the software for users to test the utility’s features and capabilities.