Export Office 365 mailbox to PST – What’s the Best Approach?

Office 365 is at the top of the email clients’ listicle. Several organizations and businesspersons refer to collab and communication with colleagues and clients. However, Microsoft and several individuals suggest to export Office 365 mailbox to PST format, and there are several reasons behind it.

In this write-up, we’ll know why users keep their Office 365 data on a local disk and ways for the same.

Why export Office 365 mailbox to PST?

We can access our Office 365 anywhere and anytime, but it’s not about accessibility; it’s all about keeping data safe. And being a businessperson, it’s none other than our responsibility to protect our data. In the world of ransomware, the best way to protect data is to keep them in a remote drive or at least on a hard drive. Below are the few scenarios for which you’ve to export Office 365 mailbox to PST format.

1. Office 365 is a cloud-based service, which means you can access it from any device, at any time, and from any location. This is presumably why it is so popular, but it is also a good incentive to have a copy of Office 365 backed up. In order to prevent ransomware and data breaches, Microsoft advises customers to retain a copy of Office 365 on a hard drive in order to secure their data from these dreadful scenarios.
2. Nobody knows where our Office 365 data is located: In the event of a data loss or Office 365 outage, you must have a backup copy of your valuable data. Despite our best efforts to keep Microsoft’s service up and operating, any online service can have outages or other issues.
3. Microsoft recommends backing up your data to a hard disc on a regular basis: Yes, you read it correctly. Microsoft explicitly states under Section 6B of its Service Agreement that it is not responsible for any loss or disruption of data and that you should make frequent backups of your content and data using a third-party service to protect yourself.
4. As a businessperson, you may be aware that “people come and leave and data enormously grow” in a firm. So you should back up your employees’ data on a hard drive to free up cloud storage if you need to share any information.

How to do Office 365 export mailbox to PST format?

Now the question arises of how to export the Office 365 mailbox to PST. You can use the E-discovery feature of Office 365 and export your valuable data into PST format, but the process is complex and is not recommended for novice users; even technical hands can make mistakes and lose all their Office 365 data. Below is the process, but it is recommended only to use this process if you’ve at least one technocrat in your team.

1. Sign in to Office 365 with administrator credentials.
2. Navigate to the Admin Center, click on the Security option on the left side, and then click on “Security”.
3. Select the eDiscovery manager from the Permissions wizard.
4. Navigate to the eDiscovery Administrator option and select the Adjacent Edit
5. Select the eDiscovery Administrator and click the Save
6. Next, click the Search option and select Content Search from the drop-down menu.
7. A new window will open with a list of all of your saved searches. Here click on the New Search
8. Now provide a name and description for the new search. Also, enter any conditions you may have and click the Submit button to finish the process.
9. Select the last created search, click on the Action drop-down box and select the Export Result option.
10. Next, select the output option that best suits your needs and click Export.
11. You may now export your search by clicking the Export option in the Search pane. Click on Download Results and copy the export key (Search may take a few hours to blink on the Export tab).
12. Now the Office 365 Export Tool has now been installed on your computer. In order to save the PST files, open the software and paste the Export key in the box provided.
13. Finally, hit the Start button to get things going.

Export Office 365 Mailbox to PST with a Professional tool

There are also tools from outside Office 365 that can export mailboxes to PST files. Shoviv’s Office 365 Backup Tool is one example. Now, I’m not going to give a full review of this tool, but the great thing about it is that it gives you more control over the Export.

If you need to export more than one mailbox or do this often, this tool will save you a lot of time. It makes it much easier to move Office 365 mailboxes to PST.

Wrapping Up

I hope this article helped you figure out how to export the Office 365 mailbox to PST. Remember that the method for searching for content can take some time. If you need to export more than one mailbox to PST, it might be better to use a third-party tool. They’re easier to use and don’t cost that much more.