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Restore Account from file level backup
Question asked by Rod Strumbel - 2/1/2023 at 7:30 AM
Unanswered
Have a customer who managed to corrupt their account from Outlook.  It wiped out dozens of folders and their contents at both the Outlook and SmarterMail level (somehow thru the IMAP interface it appears).   They were running a new Outlook side backup process that went belly up mid-way thru.  They cancelled the process and the missing data was the result.

I find documentation online for SM 13.x - 15.x restoring an account, but nothing for modern versions.

Anyone have a step by step?

I can restore a file level backup of the account from a day prior to the damage they did, but need to know how to go about getting that integrated into their existing account, what files are needed... which SHOULD NOT be overwritten, etc.

Also does anything at the DOMAIN LEVEL need to be updated, or just the account itself?

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Rod Strumbel Replied
Found this:

But it doesn't even begin to touch on the intricacies of where things need to be placed in order to run the restore operations.   It is also misleading as to where you execute these operations from.   Says to select the domain, first and then use the "..." to get to those options for what to restore.   But the what to restore is actually at the Full List of domains level only, doesn't matter what domain is selected as you have to specify the emailbox you are dealing with.   For such a critical (and common) operation, this documentation needs a severe overhaul.
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Kyle Kerst Replied
Employee Post
Hey Rod! The instructions you linked are detailing the restoration process for the backup of an entire user account, an entire missing folder, or an entire missing domain - so that is why these instructions aren't lining up with what you're expecting. If you're just restoring specific mail data that went missing the easiest way to do that is: 

1. Create a folder called Restore and drop the missing GRP files into it. 
2. Move the Restore folder into the user's mail data pathing. 
3. In SmarterMail from the Manage page; click ...>Attach Folder then complete those settings including the username and folder path location.

That will cause SmarterMail to index that folder and attach it in webmail so the user can move the missing email back to where it belongs. I hope that helps!
Kyle Kerst System/Network Administrator SmarterTools Inc. (877) 357-6278 www.smartertools.com
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Rod Strumbel Replied
Thanks for the update Kyle.

This one is a bit more involved... the client has probably 4 dozen folders that need to be restored as well.
So do I just create them all under that Restore location with however the .grp files are organized and then execute the Attach Folder on that same Restore folder with the Recursive option active?  Will that handle all those folders then ?

I can't believe in all the years we've run the SM server we've never had to do this before... lol
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Kyle Kerst Replied
Employee Post
Hey Rod, sorry for the delay on this one. That should do the trick yes! If you have CFGs present in the backup subfolders you should be okay to leave those in there as well, and we should update them as needed. If you want some help testing that restore beforehand please don't hesitate to submit a ticket. 
Kyle Kerst System/Network Administrator SmarterTools Inc. (877) 357-6278 www.smartertools.com

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