How to Export Office 365 Mailbox to PST: A Complete Guide

Written By Gaurang Sharad
Updated on August 17th, 2022

Summary:- If you are seeking solutions to backup Office 365 to PST, then you are at the right place. Here, we will discuss a manual method using the eDiscovery tool. Furthermore, we will also learn about a professional utility named Office 365 Converter. You can use any of the methods provided here to export Office 365 Mailbox to PST.

Microsoft Office 365 gives feasibility to access mailboxes anytime on any device, and its advanced and overwhelming features make it stand in the online marketplace. But, sometimes, users need to backup Office 365 mailbox to PST. This article will get the e-discovery method to Export email items from Office 365 online and Microsoft Office 365 Backup Solutions.

Why do users want to Export Office 365 Mailbox to PST?

Before moving towards the method we enlist some conditions.

When the user wants to save Mails & Documents for future purposes.
Archive Office 365 mailbox in Local disk: By converting Office 365 in the PST file, the user can save office archive mailbox to the local disk and accordingly work as a preference.
Reduce the size of Office 365 mailbox: By exporting Office 365 to PST the user can reduce the size of Office 365 by keeping backup of Office 365 mailbox in PST file format.
In case the O365 account got hacked so, to add a layer of extra protection to your Office 365 data or migrate away from Office 365.

Also, there is no fixed reason to export PST from Office 365, it depends upon individuals. If your reason is not present in the list then, it doesn’t mean this post is not for you.

Office 365 Export Mailbox to PST using eDiscovery

There are several steps mentioned below for the process by using the eDiscovery PST export tool. So follow them one by one to backup Office 365 to PST:-

Login to Office Account online with Administrator.
Next, Go to Admin > Exchange.
Click Permissions from the left pane. Go to Admin Roles >> Discovery Management.
In Discovery Management, click the ‘+’ sign to add Roles.
Now click on ‘Mailbox Import/Export’ below roles.
Next ‘Members’ is found under it, click the ‘+’ sign again and type the name.
Click on “Save” after finishing the necessary steps.
Now select “Compliance Management” after that click on in-place eDiscovery & hold” and After that select New (+).
From the “In-Place eDiscovery & Hold” dialogue box, type the name and click on the Next button.
After that choose all mailboxes by clicking on “Search all mailboxes” or the selected ones by “Specify mailboxes to search” option and adding the ‘+’
Set the Filters as per your requirement and click on the Next button from the next ‘Search query’ screen.
The next dialogue is “In-Place Hold Settings” from where you can specify the number of days for which the items are to be kept before they are deleted from the server.
Now, click on the “Finish”.
Next, click the “Close” button after appearing confirmation message.
Now finally all the generated search gets listed, after the completion of the process, and results, you can now click on the downward arrow to export the .pst files.

This method will manually export Office 365 mailbox to PST. Thus, follow the above instructions as stated for best results. You can also check the ways to transfer emails from one Gmail account to another, here in this blog

Sum Up

The eDiscovery method has some limitations as it is very lengthy and time-consuming. It requires technical expertise for the proper conversion and non-technical users may find difficulty while performing the steps. You can use a third-party tool to “Export PST From Office 365” in which Office 365 Converter comes with a wide variety of features that helps to export Office 365 mailbox to PST file and the user does not require any technical expertise while performing these conversions such as Office 365 emails to PST.