How to Backup Emails from Microsoft Office 365 Effortlessly

Summary: Email backup has become very important these days. By backing up your email regularly, you can ensure the security of your business. However, it is one of the most neglected practices in the IT industry. Companies and organizations should always back up their important email data regularly. This article will discuss how to back up emails from Microsoft Office 365 using the eDiscovery tool. Using this method, we can also export Office 365 mailbox to PST.  

Why does take Email Backup from Office 365 Important?

Today email is playing a vital role in business communication for most companies. An email stores your personal information, business invoices, contracts and other types of important documents. And it can be safely transferred from one place to another. When we talk about business email, the first name that comes to our mind is Office 365. Office 365, the cloud-based version of Microsoft, is very popular among businesses and organizations.

Have you ever wondered why Office 365 backup is important? Your email can be damaged or the email server down at any time. In addition, important emails are corrupted or permanently deleted for any reason. So there is always a strong possibility that some of your important business email and other data may be lost from Office 365. That’s why you should always take a backup of Office 365 email every few days, and for this, you can use Office 365 Email Backup Tool, professional software that easily backs up email from Office 365.

How to Backup Emails from Office 365 Cloud?

The eDiscovery and Office 365 Email Backup both are the most robust utility to take email backup from Microsoft Office 365 with high precision. It allows email backup with all attachments, including email, contacts, calendars, tasks, notes etc. Office 365 administrators can backup emails using the Content Search eDiscovery method. But it requires much knowledge about Office 365 and Exchange admin center. If you are a technocrat, you should try this method to backup emails from the Microsoft Office 365 account. However, if you are a novice, then this method is not reliable for you. So, you should try third-party Office 365 Email Backup Software.

Methods to Backup Emails from Microsoft Office 365

Typically, there is no native option to back up Office 365 mailboxes. Although some methods can help you with archiving data, they are not reliable backup solutions. A third-party professional backup solution is the best way to download all emails from Office 365. It is the reason why most companies choose professional solutions to protect their Office 365 data or email. But if you are looking for a free solution, an alternative solution is eDiscovery which you should try. We will discuss both the methods here:

• Method 1. Using eDiscovery
• Method 2. Use Professional Utility

Backup Email from Microsoft Office 365 Using eDiscovery

The eDiscovery Office 365 is a native in-place mechanism used as a workaround. It is supported in all Exchange Online plans and in selected Office 365 plans. To export the mailboxes from Office 365 to PST using eDiscovery, follow the steps shown below:

• Step 1: First, log in to your Office 365 portal and access the Microsoft 365 admin center. Now expand the Admin centers and select Security & Compliance.
• Step 2: Select Permissions in your Security & Compliance Center. Now you need to edit the eDiscovery Manager role group.

Note: The next step is very important because you need to become a member of the eDiscoevry Manager role to use the eDiscovery features.

• Step 3: On the eDiscovery Manager window, you need to add your account to the eDiscovery Administrator list. To do that, click the Edit button and follow a simple creator.

There are different roles assigned to the role group, such as Case Management, Export, Compliance Search, Preview, Hold, Review, and RMS Decrypt. Sometimes it may happen that the Export role is missing from the role group. In such a situation, you can add it by clicking the Edit role group button.

• Step 4: Now click the Search & investigation and select Content search.

Note: If you do not see the Content search option, it is just because of the eDiscovery permissions you have set in the earlier steps. Please note that the eDiscovery permissions’ changes may take up to 24 hours to be applied. Sometimes it happens almost instantly. Otherwise, it works fine after 24 hours.

• Step 5: On the Security & Compliance window, click the New Search button.
• Step 6: You need to specify the mailbox data you want to export on the Content search window. Just keep in mind that if you select All locations, the tool will search through your SharePoint Online and Public Folders databases. This process will take a long time.

If you wish to export data from all the mailboxes, select Specific locations and click Modify.

• Step 7: On the Modify locations window, you can select either Exchange email or select the specific mailboxes using the Choose users, groups option.
• Step 8: Additionally, the search option provides you various other filtering options, such as
• Keyword/phrases;
• Time ranges;
• Email properties like From/To/CC/BCC fields;
• Message types, and many more.

On the Add conditions window, check the condition(s) you want to add. You can also search for the needs in the search bar. Finally, click the Add button to add the condition(s) you have selected.

• Step 9: If you wish you export all the mailbox data, there is no need to add any conditions or keywords. Just click Save and run. This will open the Save search dialog box. Here you need to enter a name for the Search and its description. Click Save.
• Step 10: Once you click the Save, this will start the Search in the background. It would be best if you went back to the Content search window. Click the Refresh button and select your Search.
• Step 11: A new window will appear on your screen. There you can check if the Search is completed and the details related to its results. Now click More and select Export results in the dropdown.
• Step 12: On the Export results window, you need to choose the desired output options. It would be best if you also defined how you wish to export Exchange content. I would recommend choosing “One PST file for each mailbox” that will create a separate PST file for each mailbox. It is up to you whether you want to enable de-duplication for Exchange content. Once you are done, click the Export button.
• Step 13: The tool will start the export process. You can go to the Export tab to see the progress of your Search.
• Step 14: Now, you can either wait for the export process to be completed or download the results right away by clicking the Download results button. Do not forget to copy the export key by clicking Copy to clipboard. You will need this export key in the ClickOnce application.
• Step 15: The ClickOnce application known as the eDiscovery PST export tool will start. Here you need to paste the export key you have copied earlier. Next, click the Browse button and define the location where you want to save the PST files.

Finally, click Start to begin the export process. You can close the application once it is completed.

Important Note: Once you have successfully exported the mailboxes, do not forget to delete the eDiscovery search from the Content search window. Select the eDiscovery search by highlighting it and click the Trash button.

Limitations of Using eDiscovery Office 365

Exporting the mailboxes from Office 365 to PST using eDiscovery has a few limitations, such as:

• It is often seen that the PST Export button is often missing or the export process is not finished.
• The eDiscovery Office 365 export may create duplicates.
• Sometimes, Items are missing.
• PST file may get corrupted.
• The export process takes very long.
• Search is extremely problematic.

Email Backup from Office 365 using Professional Tool

A few vendors in the online marketplace provide professional solutions to backup email from Office 365 accounts, and Aryson Technologies is one of them. The Office 365 Backup and Restore tool provided by Aryson helps you backup email from Microsoft O365 as PST, EML, MBOX, PDF, and other file formats. This software also converts a user’s Mailbox into Shared Mailbox in Office 365 account. The software also allows you to export all your emails from Office 365 mailbox to Gmail, Hotmail, IMAP, HostGator, Exchange Server, AOL, and Yahoo mail. Using this software, you can not only take Office 365 email backup but also restore the mailboxes from OST and PST files into your Office 365 accounts. Follow the steps shown below to know how to backup email from Office 365 using this software:

• Download and Install Aryson Office 365 Backup & Restore Tool.
• Enter Office 365 ID and Password and Click on Login
• Now, List of your Office 365 Admin & User ID will be appear.

Note: Check the option Assign impersonation rights to backup the sub-user account.

• Choose the types from which you need to backup. (Mailbox, In-place archive, Public folder)
• After that, click on the Next button to proceed the process.
• Here, the software will display a tree structure of the selected account mailboxes.
• Now, choose Saving Options as PST for Office Email Backup
• Click on Save to Path button to save Backup Email from Office 365.
• Now, click on the Next button to Office 365 backup email.

Conclusion

When it comes to email backup from the Office 365 cloud, most users find it difficult to back up emails depending on their preferences, such as bypassing previously moved things, applying selected filters to data, and so on. In this post, we discussed how to backup email from Office 365. You may back up email from Office 365 as needed using the Aryson Office 365 Backup and Restore tool, specifically intended to back up and restore Office 365.

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