Get-MailboxDatabase doesn’t show last backup timestamp

This posting is ~7 years years old. You should keep this in mind. IT is a short living business. This information might be outdated.

Sometimes you have to check when the last backup of an Exchange mailbox database was taken. This is pretty simple, because the timestamps of the last full, incremental and differential backup is stored for each mailbox database. You can check these attributes using the Exchange Control Panel (ECP), or you can use the Get-MailboxDatabase cmdlet.

Backup successful, but no timestamp?

Take a look at this output. As you can see, there’s no timestamp for the last full, incremental and differential backup. But this database was successfully backuped some minutes before.

[PS] C:\Windows\system32>get-mailboxdatabase | select name, *backup*


Name                           : DB01
BackupInProgress               :
SnapshotLastFullBackup         :
SnapshotLastIncrementalBackup  :
SnapshotLastDifferentialBackup :
SnapshotLastCopyBackup         :
LastFullBackup                 :
LastIncrementalBackup          :
LastDifferentialBackup         :
LastCopyBackup                 :
RetainDeletedItemsUntilBackup  : False

Missing -status switch

The solution is easy: The -status  switch was missing.

[PS] C:\Windows\system32>Get-MailboxDatabase -status | fl name, *backup*


Name                           : DB01
BackupInProgress               : True
SnapshotLastFullBackup         : True
SnapshotLastIncrementalBackup  :
SnapshotLastDifferentialBackup :
SnapshotLastCopyBackup         :
LastFullBackup                 : 19.07.2016 15:22:24
LastIncrementalBackup          :
LastDifferentialBackup         :
LastCopyBackup                 :
RetainDeletedItemsUntilBackup  : False

[PS] C:\Windows\system32>Get-MailboxDatabase -status | fl name, *backup*


Name                           : DB01
BackupInProgress               : False
SnapshotLastFullBackup         : True
SnapshotLastIncrementalBackup  :
SnapshotLastDifferentialBackup :
SnapshotLastCopyBackup         :
LastFullBackup                 : 16.08.2016 15:04:02
LastIncrementalBackup          :
LastDifferentialBackup         :
LastCopyBackup                 :
RetainDeletedItemsUntilBackup  : False

After adding the -status  switch to the Get-MailboxDatabase command, the timestamps were added to the output. If you run the command during a running backup session, this is also added to the output (BackupInProgress).

3.9/5 - (11 votes)
Patrick Terlisten
Follow me
Latest posts by Patrick Terlisten (see all)