In any modern company, e-mail is one of the most important business components. Sometimes, even 10 minutes downtime of a user mailbox can result in significant financial and reputational losses. So, an Exchange administrator should have a clear plan how to backup and recover the mailbox databases. However, the recovery of a large database from the backup can take much time. To quickly recover mailboxes of the individual users, you may need the tools that allow to extract data from offline /corrupted EDB, OST or VHDX files. Stellar Exchange Toolkit is one of these tools.
Stellar Exchange Toolkit is a set of five different utilities for Exchange administrators, designed for:
- Recover mailboxes from .edb files (Exchange Database files) and backup files (.vhdx, .bkf)
- Import/export .PST files online to/from on-premises Exchange/ Office 365
- Convert files from .OST to .PST
- Reset the local administrator password in Windows Server
Let’s consider the main features of Stellar Exchange Toolkit that an Exchange administrator can be interested in.
Stellar Exchange Toolkit Installation
Download Stellar Exchange Toolkit installation file from https://www.stellarinfo.com/email-tools/exchange-toolkit.php. By the time this article is written, the latest available version has been Stellar Exchange Toolkit v 8.0.
You can install Stellar Exchange Toolkit both on the Exchange server and on the administrator’s workstation. To install Stellar Exchange Toolkit, run StellarExchangeToolkit.exe with the administrator privileges.
The installation is very simple and doesn’t cause any troubles. By default, the program is installed in C:\Program Files\Stellar Exchange Toolkit folder. To start the application, run set.exe file or click the desktop icon.
Stellar Exchange Toolkit interface is extremely simple. The appearance of the main window is shown on a screenshot below. This screen allows to call one of the five tools from the set:
- Stellar Phoenix Mailbox Exchange Recovery
- Stellar Mailbox Extractor for Exchange Server
- Stellar OST to PST Converter
- Stellar Mailbox Extractor for Exchange backup
- Stellar Phoenix Password Recovery for MS Exchange
Let’s dwell on the features of these 5 tools.
Stellar Phoenix Mailbox Exchange Recovery
Stellar Phoenix Mailbox Exchange Recovery may be useful if an Exchange database file is physically or logically damaged. Using this tool, the administrator can scan the corrupted .EDB file (containing mailboxes of the Exchanged users) and save its contents (including folders, contacts, attachments) in different formats.
You can scan the EDB file only in offline mode. If your mail database is mounted, unmount it first using the following PowerShell command:
Dismount-Database db_name1
Go to File and click Select EDB. You can search EDB files on your computer or specify the path to the EDB file manually. Select the EDB file you need and click Start.
Select the mode to scan the EDB file:
- Quick
- Extensive Scan
The tool will scan the EDB file and display the list of the found mailboxes, folders and mailbox items in them.
It is possible to search and recover from a damaged mailbox specific e-mails on different criteria (sender, recipient, body or message header text, attachment, date range, etc.)
The found e-mails, folders or entire mailboxes can be exported in a file in one of the following formats: PST, MSG, EML, PDF, HTML or RTF. As a rule, it is convenient to export a mailbox in one or several PST files. Later these files can be imported in to Exchange or connected in Outlook.
You can also directly import a mailbox to an empty Exchange/ Office 365 database in dial-tone recovery scenarios.
Stellar Mailbox Extractor for Exchange Server
The tool allows to extract the contents of mailboxes from an offline EDB file or directly from a server running MS Exchange 2010 or higher (online mode). To connect to the server you must have MS Outlook installed. The utility can be extremely useful in the scenarios of user migration between the Exchange organizations / servers or to Office 365.
In general, all Stellar Mailbox Extractor for Exchange Server features are the same as the previous Stellar tool. The difference is that Mailbox Extractor allows to extract data from a running Exchange server. 
Exchange versions 2010-2016 are supported. The administrator can export from Exchange databases the contents of the entire mailboxes or separate emails. You can export data toPST files, Office 365 or standard file formats (HTML, PDF, EML or RTF).
Stellar OST to PST Converter
This tool allows to extract data from OST files on user workstations. An OST file is a cached copy of a user mailbox stored on the MS Exchange server. If there is no connection to the Exchange server or the server is damaged, the administrator can convert the local OST file to PST or one of the standard formats (listed above) using OST to PST Converter.
The utility allows to scan a user’s computer and find all OST files. Using the graphical interface, you can view the folder structure, number of messages, contacts, tasks and calendar items. The contents of the OST file can be exported to a separate PST file or upload into the existing Outlook profile. 
Some more useful features of Stellar OST to PST Converter:
- Reducing PST files size using compression and defragmentation
- A PST file can be split into several files by different criteria (file size, date, etc.)
- All contacts can be extracted from an OST file and saved to a CSV file
Stellar Mailbox Extractor for Exchange backup
Another useful tool for an Exchange administrator is Stellar Mailbox Extractor for Exchange backup that allows to extract mail databases from the files of Hyper-V virtual machines (.vhdx) or NTBackup files (.bkf) and save them as PST, MSG, EML, HTML, RTF, PDF files or directly to Exchange / Office 365.
Stellar Phoenix Password Recovery for MS Exchange
The last tool is necessary to reset the forgotten/lost password of the local administrator on Windows Server 2003 – 2016 using the special boot CD.
Conclusion
So, Stellar Exchange Toolkit is an easy and convenient tool able to considerably simplify typical tasks of the Exchange administrator and help to recover data from a corrupter EDB file, migrate mailboxes between Exchange organizations or to Exchange Online, recover user data from OST or VHDX file, import/export user mailboxes from/to PST files, on-premises Exchange or Office 365. This toolkit can be especially useful for novice Exchange administrator without much experience in working with big Exchange databases and mailboxes, as well as Exchange Management PowerShell console .
Final rating of Stellar Exchange Toolkit :
| Interface |
4 |
| Features |
5 |
| User friendliness |
4 |
| Price |
5 |
|
Summary |
4.5 |
Stellar Exchange Toolkit totally eliminates the need of dozens of software and powershell command knowledge! This product definitely deserves a thumb up and I recommend it to every person who has day to day dealing with Microsoft Exchange Server.