Recover Messages from an Exchange Database Block-Level Backup

Applies to: Exchange 2010, Exchange 2013, Exchange 2016, DAG and stand-alone environments

You can recover individual messages after you perform a block-level backup of an Exchange database. By default, you can browse full and incremental jobs, but you can only recover the messages from the last full and incremental jobs.

Recovering messages from block-level backups is performed in two steps:

Create a recovery point.
List the recovery point to recover messages.

Notes

You can use this recovery method for Public Folder databases for Exchange 2013 or later. If you want to restore messages from Public Folder databases for Exchange 2010 or earlier, use the Exchange Offline Mining Tool.
Live browse is not supported from backups to tape libraries or virtual tape libraries.
Out-of-place restore operation to another Public Folder mailbox is not supported for recover messages.

Before You Begin

Enable block-level backup.
Make sure that the MediaAgent is prepared for recovering messages.
If necessary, change the location of the cache for the restored extents.