How to Export the Exchange 2010 Default Global Address List GAL

Home > Blogs > Exchange Server > How to Export the Exchange 2010 Default Global Address List (GAL)

How to Export the Exchange 2010 Default Global Address List (GAL)

Added by Mike Pfeiffer May 9, 2012

Looking to export your Exchange 2010 default global address list (GAL) to an external file? This is supported natively right from the Exchange Management Console (EMC). Just navigate to the Recipient Configuration node in EMC, and select the recipient type. Then from the actions pane, you can select the "Export List" option and dump the data out to a CSV or text file.

You can also customize the fields. Before exporting using EMC, you'll want to go up to View > Add Remove Columns and choose which properties you want in your file. Keep in mind that with this method, you'll need to go to each recipient type, such as mailbox, distribution group, mail contact, etc. and export your list.

Another option is the Exchange Management Shell. If you take a look at the default global address list, you'll notice it already has a filter defined:

You can use this filter to generate your report using the Get-Recipient cmdlet. This takes mailboxes, contacts, groups, and mail-enabled public folders into account for you.

To generate a report using this filter, use the following:

$filter = (Get-GlobalAddressList &#39;Default Global Address List&#39;).RecipientFilter

Get-Recipient -RecipientPreviewFilter $filter | Select-Object Name,PrimarySmtpAddress | Export-CSV c:\GAL.csv -NoTypeInformation

$filter = (Get-GlobalAddressList 'Default Global Address List').RecipientFilter

Get-Recipient -RecipientPreviewFilter $filter | Select-Object Name,PrimarySmtpAddress | Export-CSV c:\GAL.csv -NoTypeInformation

You might also want to filter out recipients that have the HiddenFromAddressLists enabled property set to true. You could modify the filter, or you could just use Where-Object and do it after the fact:

$filter = (Get-GlobalAddressList &#39;Default Global Address List&#39;).RecipientFilter

Get-Recipient -RecipientPreviewFilter $filter | Where-Object {$_.HiddenFromAddressListsEnabled -ne $true} | Select-Object Name,PrimarySmtpAddress | Export-CSV c:\GAL.csv -NoTypeInformation

$filter = (Get-GlobalAddressList 'Default Global Address List').RecipientFilter

Get-Recipient -RecipientPreviewFilter $filter | Where-Object {$_.HiddenFromAddressListsEnabled -ne $true} | Select-Object Name,PrimarySmtpAddress | Export-CSV c:\GAL.csv -NoTypeInformation

It will be a lot faster, especially in environments with lots of mailboxes, if you use a server side filter to exclude those hidden recipients:

$filter = &quot;((Alias -ne `$null) -and (HiddenFromAddressListsEnabled -ne `$true) -and (((ObjectClass -eq &#39;user&#39;) -or (ObjectClass -eq &#39;contact&#39;) -or (ObjectClass -eq &#39;msExchSystemMailbox&#39;) -or (ObjectClass -eq &#39;msExchDynamicDistributionList&#39;) -or (ObjectClass -eq &#39;group&#39;) -or (ObjectClass -eq &#39;publicFolder&#39;))))&quot;

Get-Recipient -RecipientPreviewFilter $filter | Select-Object Name,PrimarySmtpAddress | Export-CSV c:\GAL.csv -NoTypeInformation

$filter = "((Alias -ne `$null) -and (HiddenFromAddressListsEnabled -ne `$true) -and (((ObjectClass -eq 'user') -or (ObjectClass -eq 'contact') -or (ObjectClass -eq 'msExchSystemMailbox') -or (ObjectClass -eq 'msExchDynamicDistributionList') -or (ObjectClass -eq 'group') -or (ObjectClass -eq 'publicFolder'))))"

Get-Recipient -RecipientPreviewFilter $filter | Select-Object Name,PrimarySmtpAddress | Export-CSV c:\GAL.csv -NoTypeInformation

What you should end up with is something you can open in Excel that looks like this:

You can select additional properties if needed, just add them when calling Select-Object. Also, you may want to dump this data out to HTML. If that is the case, replace Export-CSV with ConvertTo-Html and redirect the output to a file with a .html extension. Finally, keep in mind that the Get-Recipient will return 1000 objects by default. You can override this by setting its -ResultSize parameter to a specific value, or to Unlimited.

Enjoy!

Mike Pfeiffer – Microsoft MVP
Director of Unified Communications
Interface Technical Training