How to Create a Backup Office 365 to Local Storage?

Published By Jamie Kaler

Approved By Rollins Duke

Published On January 9th, 2023

Reading Time 5 Min Read

Imagine you lost your data accidentally or your email service server got down, while you are working on very important work. I know it’s hard to imagine.

But it’s happened many times with users, so taking a backup of your crucial data is so important, whether it’s your personal data or professional.

As it is, many Office 365 users want to take Backup Office 365 to local storage, but they can’t find the right steps. Because It’s not as easy as we think.

This write-up will show you the right methods, that you need to create a backup Office 365 mailbox locally.

We will show you some questions, which we collect from forum sites to show you how many types of situations comes.

“Hey, I am very new to Office 365 account, and recently I had to forward some important emails in PDF format to my colleague so that he can read the emails easily. But I am not very familiar with Microsoft 365 so can anyone suggest ways to backup Office 365 to local storage?”

“Hello there, I am switching my job, due to which I have to switch my email client from Office 365 to G Suite. But all my important data is in Office 365 mailboxes, which I need to export in an easily accessible format. I looked at many methods but they were not artisans. So please suggest me any good methods.”

Benefits of Taking Backup Office 365 Mailbox Locally

If we say it in simple words, then backup means the simplest form or copy of your important data, which is stored on your device locally.

We did a survey we found that users are storing 60% of personal/professional data in Office 365 documents, and more than 75% of users are unable to download their data, which causes accidental deletion, retention policy, cyber hacks, and all.

So, taking a backup of your crucial data to local storage is the most important step for all users.

How to Create a Backup Office 365 to Local Storage Manually?

Users can create a backup of the Office 365 mailbox locally by exporting emails from Office 365 to PST, PDF, and EML format easily. All the methods are mentioned below in detail.

Method 1: Save Emails Locally as PST using eDiscovery

Important: without any expertise, you can lose your data while performing the process.

Open Office 365 using admin account credentials.
Now from the Admin Center button, choose Security and Compliance option.
Choose the “Permission” tab and check the eDiscovery Manager option.
Click on the eDiscovery Administrator >> Edit button, and generate the important role for discovery management.
Hit the options More Resources >> Microsoft Purview Compliance Portal >> Content Search >> New Search by finding them. (If the Content search option is not visible, then it will take 24 hours to show after changes in eDiscovery permissions).
After hitting the “New Search” option a Window will appear on the screen, where you can customize the settings as per your needs, and give the name and descriptions of the search. Now in the location step, you can easily select the mailbox that you want to save.
From the conditions tab, you can apply the required filters including language/region, keywords, etc as per your requirements.
After applying and configuring the all settings, hit the Submit >> Done options.
Search will be begun in the background; you can analyze the process in the Search tab.
After completing the process, click on Actions >> Export Results options to backup Office 365 to local storage.
You can select the option as per your needs, but I suggest that you should export emails with default settings for a confusion-free process and hit the “Export” button.
When your process gets completed, hit the Download Results and copy the unique export key. It will be required in the coming steps.
Open Discovery PST Export Tool will open automatically and enter the copied unique key. And choose the destination to save the data to local storage, and hit the start button to back up Office 365 to local storage.

Method 2: Backup Office 365 Mailbox Locally as PDF

In the Office 365 account, open the email that you want to save.
Click on the “More (…)” button and select the “Print” button from the appearing dropdown.
A new window will show where you have to apply the required filter and select the saving location.

And your emails will be saved in PDF format at the selected location. however, you have to repeat the process again and again for each email.

Method 3: Export Email in EML Format

Again, in the Microsoft account, select the email.
Hit the “More (…)” button and click on the “Download” button from the dropdown.
And choose the location and backup your email as EML.

These are the only method to download all Office 365 emails locally. But this method has some drawbacks, such as:

The time-consuming process to backup Office 365 to local storage.
Can’t take backup of multiple mailboxes at once.
No selected mailbox options.
Technical knowledge is required while saving emails as PST.
Can’t take backup of multiple emails at once using the PDF and EML method.

If you don’t want to face any kind of errors and problems, and wants to save your emails into various and desired format, then you can take the help of Office 365 backup software.

Time to Say Goodbye

Creating a backup of your Office 365 mailbox locally is the most important step for accessing emails offline or sharing data with other people. Cause whatever, we mentioned the complete information about the process, these are the manual methods to create a backup Office 365 to local storage, but it had some limits, so you can use the free version of the expert solution, to see how the software works.