Connect Disconnected Mailbox in Exchange 2013/2016

Written by Allen White on December 22, 2012. Posted in Exchange 2013, Exchange 2016

If you have a mailbox in Exchange 2013 and Exchange 2016 that is disconnected. it will automatically be delete when it hits the limit on your mailbox retention policy, to stop it from being deleted you must attach the mailbox to a user account. This can be done with a power shell command as seen below. First though , we need to find the GUID of the mailbox we want to attach in Exchange 2013 or Exchange 2016.

Exchange 2013/2016 – Find Mailbox GUID

This is done with the power-shell below.

Get-MailboxStatistics -Database MB | fl DisplayName,MailboxGuid

Where “MB” is the name of your mailbox database, it will display like the output below. Make a note of the guide you need.

[PS] C:\Windows\system32>Get-MailboxStatistics -Database MB | fl DisplayName,MailboxGuid

DisplayName : SystemMailbox{f43bb8a4-a5c9-4ca7-881a-48fac82016f6}
MailboxGuid : 003dcac7-d369-45a0-b664-81cfbd45136b

DisplayName : Microsoft Exchange
MailboxGuid : b0f4014b-12ea-47ce-9b78-5252d41ac143

DisplayName : Microsoft Exchange
MailboxGuid : 6eb3760c-e619-43a9-83f2-5c1e66af5104

DisplayName : HealthMailbox73cbbe7bc31a4a9886b2ccb44dabe58e
MailboxGuid : c3293304-0118-4edc-aad2-7a574710107a

DisplayName : HealthMailboxc52c6cb7eae845b1b5f7e628185e0850
MailboxGuid : d4aa9152-48ba-4f26-b620-b86cea63a5c0

DisplayName : Personal Archive - HealthMailbox73cbbe7bc31a4a9886b2ccb44dabe58e
MailboxGuid : 4ff71e76-d777-4dc6-a691-ad129050075c

DisplayName : Personal Archive - HealthMailboxf43bb8a4a5c94ca7881a48fac82016f6
MailboxGuid : 5d7b7312-c425-4044-8d2a-9fb2c77ee883

DisplayName : HealthMailboxf43bb8a4a5c94ca7881a48fac82016f6
MailboxGuid : f83dafb2-8231-4d6c-bb75-e4682f38c1d5

DisplayName : Administrator
MailboxGuid : 0498ee56-dbeb-4f9a-bdfb-1fbc4716296c

DisplayName : Microsoft Exchange Migration
MailboxGuid : 8cc2c9a2-e6d3-4357-841b-0607a23aaacb

DisplayName : Allen
MailboxGuid : 449a9752-28be-40ff-b583-d13381d822de

Attach a Disconnected Mailbox in Powershell Exchange 2013/2016

Now that we have the GUID, we can attach it to a user object.

Connect-Mailbox –Identity 449a9752-28be-40ff-b583-d13381d822de –Database MB –user allen

Above we use the mailbox GUID 449a9752-28be-40ff-b583-d13381d822de in the database MB and we attach it to the allen user account.
Simply replace the code above with your relevant details and you can then connect a disconnected mailbox in Exchange 2013.

Allen White

Allen is an IT Consultant and holds the following accreditations. MCSA, MCSE, MCTS, MCITP, CCA, CCSP, VCP 4,5, 6 and HP ASE, AIS - Network Infrastructure.

Comments (4)

Anderson Zardo

February 24, 2014 at 2:38 pm | #

Very Usefull. I Can’t do it in ECP (the user is not show on “disconected mailboxes”), but via PS works fine.

Reply
Picchu

September 21, 2015 at 10:38 pm | #

I found this to be a little more useful. You led me in the right directions though, thank you.

Get-MailboxStatistics -Identity UserName | fl DisplayName,MailboxGuid

Reply
PjaY

December 14, 2015 at 11:36 pm | #

I have a situation where the following command shows two accounts of the same name (one was disabled an hour ago, and a second that was made afterwards): Get-MailboxStatistics – database databasename. However, if I use this command with | fl DisplayName,MailboxGuid at the end of it, the displayed list does NOT show the disabled account that I need to reattach. This is a problem since I need it’s GUID to reattach it. Ideas?

Reply
ML

April 9, 2016 at 2:52 pm | #

Wow, thank you so much – this succeeded where other instructions just weren’t cutting it.

Reply