How to Export Office 365 Mailbox to PST? Learn Step by Step Process

Office 365 rapidly expands its roots in the business organization through its different levels of plans for each type of requirement whether it is large business users or small ones. There are plans available for any type of requirement.

There is also the flexibility to choose or modify the existing plans as per requirement means to pay only for what you use. Government agencies also shifting from the traditional environment to the cloud for maximum availability of data from anywhere across the globe.

The concern of writing this post is not to describe the benefits of the Office 365 mailbox but to be aware of the Office 365 user from possible threats and outrages. Why it is important to perform this operation?

It also explains the manual solution to export Office 365 shared mailbox to PST using Outlook.

Why Do Users Need to Export Office 365 Shared Mailbox to PST?

There is no doubt that Microsoft ensures the 99.9% uptime and security of Office 365 data. However, we cannot neglect the recent security breaches in cloud computing via cloud ransomware and other injected techniques.

Apart from this, there are several other reasons as well, some of which are mentioned below:

• It will ensure the availability of mailbox data to maintain business continuity during the breakdown or other interruptions.
• For forensic analysis of selective mailbox data.
• It will be helpful in compliance and regulatory needs.
• For archiving the mailbox data to create space for more storage. There is a limitation of storage capacity associated with Office 365 plans unless you opt for enterprise-level plans.

The above mentioned points are some of the reasons which must be considered seriously. If neglected, it can definitely make an impact on business continuity and productivity as well.

Different Methods to Export Mailbox to PST in Office 365

It was believed that there are four different methods available to extract Office 365 data. Those are as follows:

1. Powershell commands to perform this operation.
2. Export Office 365 Mailbox data to PST using eDiscovery
3. Transfer Office 365 Mailbox to PST using Outlook Manually
4. Export Mailbox from Office 365 to PST Using software

But the reality is that there are no such PowerShell scripts available to directly export data from the Microsoft 365 mailbox. Other than that we can use the rest three ways to perform the same. Let’s discuss this in the coming sections.

Method 1. Export Mailbox from O365 to PST Using Outlook

With the help of Outlook, the user can easily export mailbox and public folder content to PST on a Windows desktop. The primary requirement of this procedure is that an Office 365 account must be configured on your desktop Outlook email client application.

Make sure that this user has sufficient privileges on all the other mailboxes which you want to export.

To know about how to set permissions in Office 365.

After configuring the permissions for other mailboxes, there can be a little delay to appear in your Outlook (the time taken will depend on the size of the mailbox).

Once the mailbox data gets synced with your account then the remaining process using Outlook is very simple.

Steps for Exporting Office 365 Mailbox to PST Using Outlook

• Launch the Outlook application on your Windows operating system.
• Click on File and then go to Open & Export Wizard.
• Then, in the Open & Export wizard go to Import/Export.
• In import/export, select export to a file option from the other available option.
• Next, select the Outlook data file (.pst) when it asks you to choose the file format.
• Then select the mailboxes and the public folder content you want to export from Office 365.
• Provide the destination location to save the exported files.
• Now the mailbox exportation started. This will take some time depending on the data and internet speed.

Also Read: Export Mac Outlook 2016 Mailbox to PST

Limitations of Manual Approach

1. You cannot select all the mailboxes at a time to export.
2. There is no option to selectively import the data.
3. The selection of multiple folders is not allowed with the manual solution.
4. If you have multiple user accounts to export then you have to reconfigure each account one by one.
5. Syncing cloud data to Outlook might take days if you have large mailbox data to export.

Export Mailbox from O365 to PST Using Trustworthy Software

So far we have discussed the manual solution for our operation using MS Outlook 2019, 2016, 2013, and 2010, and its efficiency in the subsequent topics. From that discussion, it is clear that the traditional approach works fine for the home or the single user.

However, for large organizations, this method is not fit and suitable. So, it is better to try and deploy professional solutions such as the SoftwarePro Office 365 Export tool. It offers an enormous feature that facilitates you to extract Office 365 mailboxes to Outlook PST.

Download Now Buy Now

Some of the Advanced Features of The Tool

• Easily Export Office 365 shared Mailbox to PST format.
• Export MS Office 365 mailboxes in multiple file formats such as PST, EML, MSG, MBOX & PDF.
• Support bulk export of Office mailbox data of multiple accounts via admin login.
• Extract Office 365 mailbox items such as emails, contacts, calendars, and documents.
• Provides flexibility to export archives or in-place mailboxes to PST.
• Offers selective export for Office 365 data via date filter.

Step By Step Software Guide to Export Office 365 to PST

Step 1. Download, install, and launch the software on your computer.

Step 2. Choose Office 365 as the source and Outlook destination. Enable required mailbox workload from the list such as emails, contacts, calendars, and documents. Apply date filter for selective data export.

Step 3. Navigate to the source tab and log in with admin credentials. Click the validate button to validate the required permissions. Click on Next to move to the destination tab.

Step 4. In the destination tab, choose the destination path where you want to save the exported PST files from Office 365 mailbox. Choose the size of PST files from the drop-down menu. Click on Next to move to the user’s tab.

Step 5. In the user’s tab, you can create a mapping for bulk user account export. To do this you have three options, this includes;

• Fetch Users – With this option, the software will automatically fetch the users’ accounts associated with the admin account from the source domain.
• Import Users – If you have a sample CSV file, then you can use this option and then you will be able to upload this CSV in the software.
• Download Template – This option will provide you with a sample CSV file to create your user list.

Step 6. Once the mapping is created then select the user accounts that you want to export, and click on the validate button. After successful validation click on the start export button.

Conclusion

In this blog, we have discussed the solution to export the Office 365 mailbox to PST using Outlook. The manual solution works fine for the user like a home or the student. But for large business organizations and naive users, it is not fit and easy. So, we also discussed the professional approach to exporting Office 365 shared mailbox to PST file. It depends on your requirements on which method is feasible and technically acceptable.