Restore MDBox Emails using R1Soft

MDBox is a way of storing emails where the format is to have multiple emails within a single file.

Having emails stored in this format saves disk space and inodes for your cPanel account.

When restoring MDBox emails, you will need to restore the emails into a temporary email account and then forward emails into your primary email account. Otherwise, if you restore the email files on top of the original email account, it would get rid of any new emails that you might have received between the restore point and now.

Identifying an MDBox Email Account


Step 1 - Login to cPanel and go to File Manager.



Step 2 - Navigate to mail//
In this example, we will be using admin@yourdomain.net.au, therefore we will go to the directory mail/yourdomain.net.au/admin.


Once you are there, if you see mailboxes and storage, then the email format is MDBox, please follow the section below to restore MDBox emails.




Restoring Emails to a Temporary Email Account

For this example, we will be restoring emails from admin@yourdomain.net.au.

Step 1 - Login to cPanel and create a temporary email account to restore the emails into - for this example, we will be creating admin-restore@yourdomain.net.au.








Step 2 - Open File Manager and delete everything inside the temporary email folder - in this example, we will be going to the directory mail/yourdomain.net.au/admin-restore.




Step 3 - Click on R1Soft from cPanel home page (if you come to a login page, use your cPanel username and password to login).


Click on the Browse icon on the date that you wish to restore from - in this example, we will be restoring from February 27 9pm.


Navigate to the mail folder of the domain you wish to restore from (home/mail//) - in this example, we will be navigating to home/mail/yourdomain.net.au.
(To navigate, double click on the folder)


Select the Email Account on the right hand side and click on Send Selected to Agent.



Specify a Filename and then click on Send to Agent - in this example, we will be using admin-restore.



If you receive an error, it is okay to ignore it.



Step 4 - Open up File Manager in cPanel and extract the restored tar.gz file to tmp.






Step 5 - Navigate into the extracted files - in this example, we will be going to /home/yourdoma/tmp/home/yourdoma/mail/yourdomain.net.au/admin.

Next, Select All in the folder and then click Move.


Specify the file path of your temporary email account folder - in this example, we will be using /home/yourdoma/mail/yourdomain.net.au/admin-restore.



Step 6 - Go back to cPanel home page and select Email Accounts.




Then click on Access Webmail for the temporary email account.



Once you are inside webmail, you can use this as a normal email account, we recommend forwarding any important emails to your primary email address.


Step 7 (OPTIONAL) - Delete the temporary email account once you are done with using it to recover any emails.