HOW TO: Get the total count and Kind of BadItems for failed Move Request

Overview

A common bad practice when it comes to migrating mailboxes, is to set the badItem limit to 50,100, 200 etc, and keep incrementing until Resume-MoveRequest finally works. 

When you do this, you’re blindly accepting large data loss, without knowing exactly what kind of items are corrupt.

Here is a simple way to determine the total number of  bad items, and exactly what type/kind the bad items are. 

Solution

1. Connect to Exchange Online or open Exchange Management Console

"Connect-ExchangeOnline"

2. Export move request statistics to xml file:

"Get-MoveRequestStatistics -Identity user@contoso.com -IncludeReport | Export-CliXML C:\YourLocation\FileName.xml"

3. Import the previously exported data and store it as variable:

"$BadItemsReport = Import-CliXML C:\YourLocation\FileName.xml"

4. Review the total number of Bad Items

"$BadItemsReport.report.baditems.count"

5. Get the full report of baditems and kind of baditems

"$BadItemsReport.report.baditems | Out-GridView"

This will give you full report with many columns that can be useful for understanding of failed items.