How to View Skipped Items in Exchange Online Migration
Question details
The user needs to retrieve a detailed report of skipped items during an Exchange Online migration when the standard SkippedItems field appears empty.
- Product
- Exchange Online
- Device & OS
- not provided
- Scenario
- Troubleshooting email migration errors and retrieving diagnostic logs for mailboxes that failed to fully sync.
- Observed behavior
- The migration statistics display a skipped-item count, but the SkippedItems field remains empty, preventing administrators from seeing exactly what failed to migrate.
Ensure you have Exchange Administrator access to your Microsoft 365 tenant and that the Exchange Online PowerShell V2 (EXO V2) module is installed and connected.
Retrieve Detailed Skipped Items Reports via Exchange Online PowerShell
Use specific parameters in Exchange Online PowerShell to extract detailed migration statistics, sync request reports, and export them for investigation.
By default, standard migration reports may not populate the SkippedItems field completely. Including diagnostic switches and exporting the results to an XML file forces Exchange to output the hidden skipped item details.
Open PowerShell as an Administrator and connect to Exchange Online by running 'Connect-ExchangeOnline' and signing in with your admin credentials.
Run the command: Get-MigrationUserStatistics <affected user SMTP address> -IncludeSkippedItems -IncludeReport -DiagnosticInfo "showtimeslots, showtimeline, verbose" | Export-Clixml C:\temp\EXO_MigUserStats1.xml
To get further details on the sync failure, run: Get-SyncRequest -Mailbox <affected user SMTP address> | Get-SyncRequestStatistics -IncludeReport -DiagnosticInfo "showtimeslots, showtimeline, verbose" | Export-Clixml C:\temp\EXO_SyncReq.xml
Navigate to your C:\temp\ directory and open the generated .xml files. Review the detailed logs to identify the specific items that were skipped and the underlying error codes.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Why does the SkippedItems field show as empty in the Exchange Admin Center?
The standard interface and basic cmdlets often summarize data to load quickly. The SkippedItems field may appear empty unless you explicitly query it using the '-IncludeSkippedItems' and '-IncludeReport' switches in PowerShell.
Is it safe to use Set-MigrationBatch -ApproveSkippedItems?
Using this command will push the migration batch to completion by permanently ignoring the files or emails that failed to sync. It is safe if you have already confirmed the skipped items are unnecessary (like corrupted calendar events or deleted items), but you should always review the skipped items report first.
Where are the exported Clixml reports saved?
In the provided PowerShell commands, the 'Export-Clixml' cmdlet directs the output to 'C:\temp\'. Ensure this folder exists on your local machine before running the command, or modify the path in the script to save the files to your preferred directory.
