How to Backup Exchange Online mailboxes to PST?

Exchange Online is becoming popular day by day due to the feature which comes with it. More and more people are becoming Office users for sending and receiving emails. However, the regular communication between users piles up in the form of emails in the user's Office 365 account, leading to storage problems in many cases. To overcome from this complex situation, many users look to take Exchange Online backup but need help finding a perfect for taking backup safely.

Backup and migration are the most common situation when users think about exporting Office 365 data. However, there are more situations when the user needs to export the data, such as to meet the organization's legal and financial aspects.

No matter for what reason you need to move the data from the Office 365 account, this write-up will take on critical challenges while creating a backup of Office 365 data and one reliable solution to overcome from them.

Why does a user think about creating a backup copy of their Office 365 mailbox?

It is better to have the backup copy instead of waiting for the data to get comprised from the accidental deletion, malware attack, etc. Apart from them, many more reasons create a necessity to backup Microsoft 365 emails into a portable file format like PST. We have summarized some of them for your reference:

• Microsoft Office 365 has a storage limit that depends upon the subscription plan user has opted for. Whenever the data piles up in their account, which also consumes space, to free up some space, users look to remove the data from it and create a backup of that data.

• To eliminate the risk of losing data, most Office 365 users look to the backup of their data, and PST file is one of the better options to store the data.

• Microsoft is not responsible for the data loss of any user account. Keep a data backup to secure it from multiple internal and external threats.

• At the time of outages, users will not be able to get access to their data. However, at the same time, if the user has the data backup copy, they will eliminate data inaccessibility.

• To have control over the employee data in the case of existence, one of the best solutions is to create a backup of them locally, which can be used at any time to access the data associated with that account.

A great way to eliminate the risk of losing data is to take regular data backups. Office 365 is not an exception. Taking Exchange Online backup at regular intervals will help overcome data loss incidents.

Many Office 365 users raise their queries over the web regarding the method to back up their data. Eventually, most of them need clarification about choosing the best method for taking Office 365 email backup effectively. Don’t worry; we will make you aware of the manual as well as the paid solution to cater to your needs.

Free solution to backup Microsoft 365 data into PST file

If we talk about the manual back up method, 9 out of 10 users try to take the backup using them, but the question is how many of them succeed. Manual method to backup Microsoft 365 emails possesses multiple challenges and the user who is implementing those methods needs more technical knowledge and the right backup approach.

However, to make things clear, we will demonstrate a few manual solutions for taking Exchange Online backup in a better way. The first method that comes to mind is creating a new content search via eDiscovery. In this backup approach, users must first create a new search to export the mailboxes and start exporting them into PST. Check out the detailed procedure on how to initiate a backup.

Procedure to backup Office 365 Mailboxes into PST file format Using eDiscovery Method

• First step will include login in with the credentials into your Office 365 Admin Center.

• Afterward, go to the admin center and click on Security & Compliance.

• Now here, you need to go to the Permission tab and click on the eDiscovery Manager.

• From the eDiscovery Manager, click on Edit role group. You can also add the user by using the using the PowerShell Command, which is given below:

Add-RoleGroupMember -Identity "Discovery Management" -Member John (User)

• From the Choose eDiscovery Manager Administrator, select the listed user to include in the role group and then click on Save to move forward.

• Again go back to the Security and Compliance section, and choose the new search option.

• Now, you can assign a name & description, location, condition, and at the end, review your search. In the end, click on Submit to continue.

• From the Exchange Admin Center, go to the Compliance and the In-place Discovery option. After that, click on Export to a PST file.

• Using the browse, you can choose the location where you need to save the backup file. Also, you can check for the reduplication option for excluding the duplicate items from the resultant PST file.

• Click on the Start button in order to initiate the export process. You can also check the export process status.

The process will take time to complete the Exchange Online backup process according to the total size of added data. However, this method will not recommend if the users have large mailboxes because executing them will take a long time. Also, users cannot use selectively backup their data which is one of its most significant drawbacks.

A solution to overcome the problem of manual Office 365 backup solution

Users face multiple problems while performing the backup. Considering these all, there is a need for a reliable Exchange Online backup solution that will cater to the demands of Office 365 users. Multiple third-party software is available, but choosing the best out of them is important. Shoviv Office 365 backup tool is one such solution that comes with a user-friendly interface and advanced functionality.

This software makes it easier to take Office 365 email backups in various file formats such as MSG, MBOX, PST, etc. It has top-notch from a data filtration option to an incremental backup feature. Moreover, the tool doesn’t require prior technical skills from users to run it.

If we foray into its core competencies, it can add multiple Office mailboxes, and users can run multiple backup jobs simultaneously. This Exchange Online backup software provides more advanced features like backup scheduling. Using this option, scheduling the backup job at different timeframes is easier.

Other features, like incremental backup features, are designed to tackle interruption, usually occurring in any process. This will restrict the entry of duplicate items in the resultant backup file. In addition, the software keeps the Meta properties of the item unchanged. To check out more features of this third-party Exchange Online backup solution, looks towards exploring its demo version.

Conclusive Statement

It seems to be an easy task to manage the backup of the Exchange Online mailboxes, but most users need help to achieve the result for various reasons. One of them is the need for the right approach to take Exchange Online backup using the right solution. We have highlighted some solutions which makes easier to back up the complete Office 365 mailbox data quickly. However, the end decision will be the user to decide on utilizing the backup method.