How to Backup Office 365 Mailboxes Emails and Data – eDiscovery Tool

Grab the best ways to backup Office 365 mailbox. Learn how to export & backup Office 365 emails and data with eDiscovery tool and Office 365 backup tool.

Microsoft Office 365 is at forefront in the domain of online business productivity suite. And taking its license is as easy as taking a piece of pie. However, to backup Office 365 mailbox on desktop is certainly a mind-scratching situation.

• How to add a new user and assign a license in Office 365

In fact, many Office 365 users whether they are using O365 Home or Personal plan and other license asked, ‘How to take backup of Office 365 mails?’. If you also nodded at this question, then stay on this article to know the relevant approaches to save O365 emails.

As we all know, downloading emails from O365 mailbox has its own pros. Because one can do multiple things.

• If Office 365 emails are saved in PST format on PC, then one can easily access its information in desktop-oriented Outlook client.
• The downloaded emails can be moved to secondary storage device like Pen drive. Further, you can easily move those emails to another system.
• An extra copy of emails stored on local drive always safeguards you from data loss risk.

After understanding the advantages, let’s go through the methods that we use to backup Office 365 emails.

Techniques to Backup Office 365 Mailbox to Desktop/PC

Generally, there are two workarounds that can be used to take backup of Office 365 data. One is eDiscovery Tool (the manual method) and the other is Office 365 backup tool (automated service) to download Office 365 mailbox to PST. Both the methods are discussed here.

Approach #1: Use eDiscovery PST Export Tool – The Manual Method

eDiscovery is a service provided by Office 365. Its function is to find the content across the Groups, Teams, Exchange Online mailboxes, OneDrive for Business, and SharePoint Online. On top of that, eDiscovery cases can be used to explore, hold and download the In-place eDiscovery search in PST file on user’s specified location.

Apart from this, to examine the content for legal cases, you can use the Office 365 Advanced eDiscovery Tool. But, to use this advanced version, the subscription plan like O365 E3, E5 is needed.

Now, the following workaround is categorized into five well-defined steps. So, execute each step carefully to backup Office 365 emails of users’ account.

Stage 1: Provide eDiscovery Permission

To initiate the process, eDiscovery Manager role should be permitted to users in order to perform content search and export searched information. For this, use the below instructions.

• Use this ‘https://protection.office.com’ and sign-in as administrator to directly open Security & Compliance window
• Now, click on Permissions option from left side panel to open its section.

• Check the box labeled as eDiscovery Manager to open its wizard.

• You need to click on Edit role group from eDiscovery Manager window.
  

• After that, click on Choose eDiscovery Administrator under the Edit role group section.

• Click on Edit to proceed further.

• Click on +Add in order to assign role to member(s).

• Here, you can also find the user by typing its name initials in the search bar. Once you get the desired user, just check its corresponding box and add it.

• We select a user named ‘Rennie’. Once the confirmation like ‘1 member is added’ display, click on Done button.

Stage 2: Generate eDiscovery New Case

It is a very crucial step where we add specific member to an eDiscovery case. Actually, it gives access to hold the content or perform number of content searches under a single case. By doing this, you will export the searched content. Now, to make new case, go through the below steps to backup Office 365 mailbox:

• In the Security & Compliance window, go to Search & investigation and select eDiscovery.

• Click on +Create a Case to open New case wizard.

• Now, create a meaningful Case Name and it details in Description box. Then, click on Save to create new eDiscovery case.

Stage 3: Add Members to Manage Case

After creating the eDiscovery case, it is the time to add some users in it. To do this, use the following steps:

• From eDiscovery section, select the Case name from the listed cases that created in above step to open Manage this Case dialog-box.

• Click on + Add button under the Manage members section.

Important Tip: Under the Manage role groups section, you can easily assign a new role for eDiscovery cases.

• Here, we add ‘Rennie’ from People picker window and click on Add.

• At last, click on Save to finally add the member. By doing this, the user ‘Rennie’ can perform eDiscovery search on its Office 365 data.

Stage 4: Do Content Search

This is the step where we actually start searching the content in Exchange Online mailboxes. This content search can only be carried out by the members who having the eDiscovery Manager role permission. To do this, go through the below steps and perform content search.

• Go to Security & Compliance, click on Search & investigation drop-down button. And, select eDiscovery option.

• Now, select the case under the Case name column and click on Open.

• Now, click on Searches >> +New search tab from the menu as shown in the screenshot.

• From New search page, you can search anything under Search query section.

• In order to select the mails or other sites, select the radio-button of Specific locations and click on Modify. Afterward, you are free to select various components for content search like Office 365 Groups, SharePoint Online, and much more. Here, we opt for Exchange public folders for backup of Office 365 emails only. Then, click on Save.

• Next, click on Save & run in order to save the search and initiate process.

• In Save search pop-up window, just enter the search name and details under the Name and Description box. Then, click on Save button.

Now, enter the string or keyword that you want to search in the Exchange Online window under Keywords box and click on Search & run. It takes some time to search the content.

Stage 5: Download eDiscovery PST Export Tool & Searched Content on Desktop

Once the search procedure gets over, it is the time to export the backup Office 365 emails. For this, we have to install the eDiscovery export tool and then the further process takes place.

Note: Internet Explorer 9.0 browser is needed to download eDiscovery tool. Otherwise, it generates ‘Application cannot be started’ error and you will become unable to perform the rest of the procedure.

• From Searches window, click on More drop-down button and select Export results.

• As per requirement, you can change the settings under Output options and Export Exchange content as section. Then, click Export button.

• As soon as you clicked on Export tab, all the searched jobs list display on the screen for specific eDiscovery case.

• Now, click on Download results to download the eDiscovery PST Export Tool.

• Now, the export tool starts to download and it takes only a few minutes for completion.

• Copy the Export Key and paste in eDiscovery Export Tool pop-up window. Also, provide a location to save the resultant exported data file by clicking on Browse. After that, click on Start.

• Once the export task gets successfully completed, hit Close >> Finish button.

You can check the PST file on location that chosen earlier to save the resultant file. Now, you are free to move this file on pen-drive or Outlook.

Apparantly, It’s Not Fairly Easy to Use eDiscovery PST Export Method

As it is clear from above that entire process consists of multiple stages that need to be completed carefully. And, the time consumed by complete method is very huge.

If we consider today’s business requirement, they need more work in less time. Likewise, it is not fruitful to use such a complex and time-consuming workaround. So, it is advised to use a simple method instead.

Approach #2: Quick Automatic Way to Backup Office 365 Emails

If you find above solution inconvenient and unsuitable, then switch to automatic and facile method known as SysTools Office 365 Backup Software. It is one of the easiest and safest ways to protect O365 messages by backing up on the system.

• With Office 365 backup tool, users can save emails from one or multiple O365 primary, admin, and shared mailbox(es) in just simple steps in batch.
• Besides this, the offline copies of data can be saved in PST or EML file type at any user’s specified place.
• Interestingly, both Outlook PST or EML file are importable in nature and can be copied to flash drive, external Hard-Drive.
• The best part when there is an emergency and you need to restore the data, then with the same utility it can be done easily.
• Yes, you heard it right! This tool also gives you ability to restore the data items from locally saved PST file to Office 365 users’ mailbox(es).
• Plus, scheduling backup functionality is also available.
• Above all, the Date Filter option lets you to backup or restore data of Office 365 of a particular date range.

So, you have the only data that you need instead of unsuitable data elements. Plus, apart from emails, the tool can backup contacts and calendars in PST & restore emails, task, journals, contacts, and calendars from a locally saved PST to O365.

You may like following Office 365 tutorials:

• Create Bulk Users in Office 365 (from CSV File)
• Delete site collection in SharePoint Online Office 365 and SharePoint 2013/2016/2019
• Why Companies are Switching from Google Apps to Office 365
• SharePoint Online Office 365 enable or disable user account
• What is Shared mailbox in Office 365? How to create and access SharePoint mailbox in Office 365?
• Steps to Migrate email from one Office 365 tenant to another Office 365 tenant
• Office 365 DLP Policy Stuck Deleting Security & Compliance Center
• How to Backup Office 365 Mailboxes Emails and Data – eDiscovery Tool
• Office 365 Export – Take 100% Backup Office 365 Mailbox to PST Easily
• Office 365 Import Tool Perfect Option for PST to Office 365 Migration
• Add Calendar List in the Modern SharePoint Online Site Pages

Bringing It All Together

That’s all about how to take backup of Office 365 mailbox. As we discussed above, there are lots of advantages of saving the O365 emails on local device. Hence, it is the time to opt the best technique with higher efficiency and export an offline copy of O365 messages on desired location. Hope you learn details on backup office 365 mailboxes.