Unarchive all mails

[NJC]

Just a quick one: I have a user request to unarchive all mails and restore from their vault back to their mailbox.

Is there an easy peasy way to do this?

Thanks!

Nick

[Brian_Day]

Disable them from archiving and then use the archive exporter to export back to Original Mailbox. That *should* be it I think.

[TonySterling]

The easiest way to do this is to use the export feature from the Vault Admin Console (VAC).

In the VAC on the left side there is an Archives section.  Right click and choose the Export option, this will launch a wizard that has an option to export to original mailbox.

One word of caution, make sure they do not have quota in place that the restore will meet or exceed. 

[TonySterling]

Sorry for the duplication, I hit reply to post and then got busy doing something else and I didn't see Brian's post.  :)

[NJC]

Chaps,

Thanks - have a good weekend.

Nick

[andra_christie]

Note: If you use the Import/Export Wizard to export archived items back to their original mailbox, the shortcuts in the user's mailbox will be replaced with mail items, so there will be no duplication except if the user has moved shortcuts around in their mailbox to other folders than where they were originally archived from.

If users have moved shortcuts around in their mailboxes the following will happen when you export back to mailbox -

1. items that were archived in a particular folder in outlook and not moved around will restore without an issue and restore the original items
2. items that were archived and then the shortcuts moved to a different folder will be restored as original items in the original folder where they were archived - not to the folder where the shortcut was moved to - this will result in shortcuts being left behind in the mailbox, those shortcuts will still work but they are essentially duplicates of the restored item and will need to be deleted manually. If the customer wants the structure they now have with the moved shortcuts - they can delete the restored item from the original place where it was archived and is now restored to and they can use the shortcut that is still in the location where they moved it, to restore the item to the location the shortcut resides in and then they can rearchive the item if they want. This will update the index with the item's new location.

Example

I have two folders in my outlook - Inbox and Test. I archive a bunch of items in Inbox and then move the shortcuts to test. If I do an export from archive back to mailbox I will end up with the restored mail items in the Inbox because that is where they were initially archived and it's the only location pointer Ev has to them in outlook (at the time of archive - after they become shortcuts we lose the ability to track them) - the shortcuts that I move to the Test folder remain there and are still accessible (I have not used the option to remove them from archive so they are still in the archive and can be accessed regardless of their location in my mailbox).

[agent66]

Andra I have tried this on my own mailbox and have duplicate shortcuts... these shortcuts were never moved. Any insight on this? We are on EV 7 SP1\exchange 2003 sp2

[MichelZ]

Hi

Unfortunately, this is the normal behaviour.
We have a tool in development which takes care of Export / Import and Scanning for Shortcut moves.

If you're interested, the Tools Name would be EVMove and the responsible Person on our Team is Peter Kozak, peter.kozak (at) vcare-it.com

Cheers
Michel

[indo]

Hi

The above posts are really helpful but I would like more information. I have a mailbox that is currently archived by Vault 7.5. Now my manager has asked me to save a copy of this user’s mailbox to the local hard disk on a server so that the user can take home the .pst and import to his Outlook . EV client will not be installed of users home pc. I know that if you export a vaulted mailbox to a .pst you cannot view any of the archived email, you only get index/ pointer to where this info is stores and in any case this is no use to end user as he needs to be able to view the whole content of his mailbox.

What is the best way to unvault the mailbox and then export the unvault mailbox as a .pst so that the users can view all his mails at home. This user used to be a director so I really don't want to feck up his mailbox or his info within it. Can I used the Export Wizard and is the export to original mailbox the best option? Once this is done do I then open the mailbox it its original state in Outlook and export as to .pst?

Thanks in advance

Dee

[Wayne_Humphrey · Accepted solution]

I don’t really understand what’s the problem, just export the users archive to pst, then let him open the pst on his home pc.  There is no need for the client extensions to be installed, and it will not affect his current archive.

[Kopfjager]

Hi Dee,
            When you say exporting a vaulted mailbox to PST leaves the shortcuts, I think you are meaning a export from Outlook.   As the others have mentioned, using the Export Wizard in the EV Admin Console and exporting to PST will give you the original items and not shortcuts.  The user can then open the PST at home to view the items normally.

[MichelZ]

Hi Dee Kopfjager is on the right track. You don't export your shortcuts from Outlook, but you rather do it from the Vault Administration Console (VAC), right click on "Archives" and select "Export", I believe. This will lead to a "standard" Outlook PST File which can be viewed without the need for the Enterprise Vault Client on users PC. Cheers Michel

[Wayne_Humphrey]

WHAT?  relook @ the posts again, im sure i was right?

[MichelZ]

Yes, but look again. Looks like "indo" was trying to export the shortcuts from within outlook, rather than exporting from withing the VAC.

[Wayne_Humphrey]

and i told him to "just export the users archive to pst, then let him open the pst on his home pc. " :p