Almost everyone who used a computer in the past three decades will have come into contact with Office 365 and other Microsoft products, Anyone on the internet having an O365 mailbox can access their mailboxes anytime on any device. This blog is more focused on How to create a backup of Office 365 emails to PST file format as O365 does not provide any backup option.
Here, In this blog, we will discuss the need for Office 365 backup & restore to PST file format and manual techniques as well as the best technique to achieve the backup & restore operations which helps you to make the task easy and hassle-free.
Reasons to Backup Office 365 Mailboxes to PST?
There are various reasons why a particular user wants to create a backup of Office 365 mailboxes to PST and other file formats. Few reasons are as follows:
- To make data files accessible at any time.
- Need to migrate Outlook datafiles.
- For Employee or organizations database analysis purposes.
- Archiving mailbox contents to local disk.
- To maintain the safety and security of the Outlook PST.
- For reducing the size of the Office 365 mailbox.
The above-mentioned reasons create a disturbance while backing up Office 365 mailboxes to PST file format. Backing up data from Office 365 to PST is the best solution that will help a particular user or admin of an organization to avoid or overcome the above situations.
How to Backup Office 365 Mailboxes to PST?
To backup office 365 mailboxes to PST file format successfully, there are many methods by which you can create a backup of Office 365 mailboxes to PST file format. Methods to perform backup are as follows :
Through MS Outlook Application
Prerequisites –
- All the Office 365 mailboxes must be configured with Microsoft Outlook accounts.
- Internet connectivity is required to configure and assign the full control permission to the Office 365 mailboxes.
After assigning the admin permissions to wait for a while till the mailboxes are visible to the Outlook application. Now, Perform the below steps for the backup process –
Step 1: Open up MS Outlook.
Step 2: Now, click on the File option and choose Import/export.
Step 3: Next, press the Export to a file option and click Next to proceed further.
Step 4: Then, choose Outlook data file (.pst) and click on Next.
Step 5: Now, Select the folder to export from and click Next.
Step 6: Further, choose Select duplicates to be created for exporting the files.
Step 7: At last, click Finish to start the backup process.
Now, let’s move on to the next technique to backup Office 365 data files to PST file format.
Using eDiscovery PST Backup & Restore Tool
This method also requires a proper internet connection and Outlook installation in the system. Follow below steps to Backup Office365 mailboxes to PST file format using eDiscovery Technique –
Step 1: Open your Configured Outlook application.
Step 2: Now, go to Office 365 Admin Center.
Step 3: Then, select and click on the Security & Compliance Center.
Step 4: Next, click on the Permissions option and edit the eDiscovery Manager role group. For the following assigned roles such as Compliance Search, Case Management, Hold, Export, Backup, Review, Preview, and RMS Decrypt, check the presence of the Backup role. If not present, add it by clicking on the plus(+) button.
Step 5: Now, select and go to the Search & Investigation option. Click on the add (+) button to start a New Content Search wizard. Provide the perfect name and click Next to move forward.
Step 6: Choose the Search everywhere option and tick mark Exchange to backup data from all mailboxes. You can also select specific mailboxes using the Custom location selection feature. Also, you can backup from Public folders by choosing the search all public folders option.
Step 7: Next, you can provide filters such as time range, email metadata (from, to, cc, bcc), and message types.
Step 8: In the next window, click on Search and choose the desired options for backup then, click on the Start export option to start the backup and restore process.
Step 9: In the Content Search dialogue box, you can download the export results by clicking the Download export results option. This will generate an export key and copy this to Clipboard.
Step 10: In the eDiscovery PST export software paste the copied export key and provide the Export tool, the desired folder location where you want to save the backed up PST files.
Step 11: At the end, click on Start to start the backup or export process.
The above-mentioned processes can solve your problem of backup Office 365 mailboxes to PST file format, but there are some limitations in both of the processes which can cause a major error during the Office 365 backup & restore process. Few major limitations are listed below –
- Time-consuming and complex backup process.
- Selective mailboxes cannot be exported using both techniques.
- Microsoft Office 365 archiving license is required in backup using the eDiscovery tool technique.
- Multiple mailboxes can not be migrated.
- Mailbox configuration is mandatory in both methods.
The above-explained limitations can cause major issues during Office 365 mailbox backup. So, to avoid these limitations use of the Best Technique is advised.
Best Technique to Backup Office 365 Mailboxes to PST
Using any third-party tool is the professional and efficient approach to backup Office 365 mailboxes to PST file format. Office 365 Backup & Restore Tool is the best utility that can save or backup your Office 365 data files into PST file format without any type of data loss. This Office 365 Backup tool has advanced features that will create a backup of your Office 365 data files easily.
Now, let’s understand the key features and benefits of this professional software –
Most Prominent Features of Office 365 Backup & Restore Tool
These are some amazing features of the tool –
- Saves the backup in multiple file formats like PST, EML, EMLX, MSG, MBOX, HTML, MHT, TXT, and PDF.
- Backup all the data from the mailboxes like emails, journals, contacts, calendars, tasks, etc.
- Backup or restore mailboxes in the CSV file.
- Exports the mailbox data from Office 365 to Gmail, Yahoo, Thunderbird, IMAP, and various other email clients directly.
- Ables to take selective mailboxes backup of Office 365 by date range using Date Filter options.
- Allows users to assign impersonation rights options to backup the mailboxes of multiple accounts of Office 365.
Final Words
In this technical article, we discussed “Open Source Method to Backup Office 365 Mailboxes to PST”. Also, we discussed the reasons which lead to backup Office 365 mailboxes to PST file format. We detailed here each step involved in the manual techniques as well as the best-preferred technique for office 365 email backup. After it, we understood the limitations of the manual techniques like eDiscovery and through Outlook application technique. At last, we found that using professional software is the best approach to backup Office 365 mailboxes to PST file format. Thanks for reading this article. I hope you liked it.
Open Source Techniques 