Export Office 365 mailboxes to PST & Import PST to Office 365

Last updated on May 18th, 2023

If you are a user of the Office 365 email service and your email data are in Office 365 (also known as online-exchange), you might want to keep all the important data stored on your local disk. There is a number of reasons to do that, like archiving your email data or making an offline copy of your important data. Also, if you have data stored in PST files and there may need to import PST to Office 365.

Today we will find out how to export Office 365 mailboxes to PST and also to Import PST to Office 365. So all together, we will serve both kinds of users. First, who wants to export Office 365 mailboxes to PST, and second, who want to import Outlook PST to Office 365. This is going to summarize all the information you need to know about archiving your Office 365 and you will also come to know the reasons and advantages of doing both.

In the first part of this article, we will find out why and how to export Office 365 mailboxes to PST and in the second part we will find out why and how to import PST to Office 365.

But what if a single tool does both tasks for you? Obviously, it will be great.

Try a trial version of Exchange Server Suite to know how to Export Office 365 to PST & vice versa.

Table of Content

Now successfully export Office 365 mailboxes to Outlook PST

Even Office 365 is a cloud-based service and has many benefits. Though, situations may arise where a user might have to export Office 365 mailboxes to PST format. Even though Office 365 has security features, it doesn’t offer the option to take a hard backup of the mailboxes. We will find out the need to export Office 365 mailboxes to PST format and will also find out how to do it effortlessly.

We will also look into how to manually export Office 365 to Outlook PST and reveal a third-party solution that will help you to do the same task effortlessly.

Why do users export Office 365 Mailbox?

We are aware that the Office 365 application in itself does not offer any built-in feature to Export Office 365 mailboxes to Outlook PST file. This is when the user tries to find ways to do it himself.

Here are the reasons why Office 365 users export to PST file:

Archive Office 365 mailbox in hard drive: If you export Office 365 to PST file, you can save that Office 365 mailbox data to your hard drive and work with it accordingly.

Moderate the size of Office 365 Mailbox: You can ease the load on your Office 365 application by exporting Office 365 mailbox to PST file. This way, you will also have a backup of Office 365 mailbox which can be accessed and retrieved anytime. Your Office 365 application will work smoothly too.

How to export Office 365 mailbox to PST?

We have two methods. The first one is the old manual method and the other is the new improved method which uses a third-party solution.

How to export Office 365 mailboxes to PST manually

Firstly, log in to Office Account online with Administrator credentials
Go to Admin > Exchange
Go to Permissions from the left pane > Go to Admin Roles > Discovery Management
In Discovery Management, click ‘+’ sign to add Roles
Now click on ‘Mailbox Import/Export’ below the roles
Under ‘Members’, click the ‘+’ sign and click on the name of the user
Click on “Save” after doing what is asked
Go to “Compliance Management > in-place eDiscovery & hold” and click on the New (+)
From the “In-Place eDiscovery & Hold” dialogue box, enter the name and click Next
After that select all mailboxes by selecting “Search all mailboxes” or the selected ones by “Specify mailboxes to search” option and adding the ‘+’
Set the desired filters and click the Next button from the next ‘Search query’ screen
The next dialogue is “In-Place Hold Settings” from where you can select the number of days for which the items are to be kept before they are deleted from the server
After that, click on “Finish”
Finally, click the “Close” button after the confirmation message
Now finally the entire generated search gets listed after the completion of the process, results, you can now click on the downward arrow to export the .pst files

Drawbacks of the manual method :

The option to filter items is not provided during export
You cannot export selective data like emails and contacts separately
You need to be an expert to export Office 365 mailboxes to PST successfully
The process is long and complicated
Even a single mistake might lead to major data loss

How to import PST to Office 365

Now that we have discussed how to export Office 365 mailboxes to PST, let us how to do the opposite. Yes, we are now going to find out why users import PST to Office 365 and how they can do it with success.

Why import PST to Office 365?

We know that Office 365 is a cloud-based service that allows you to access your emails anytime and anywhere. Office 365 client also has a larger data storage capacity when compared with the simpler Outlook application. Even though both services are run by Microsoft, when it comes to features and benefits, Office 365 takes the cake. In this article, we will find out why Outlook users import PST to Office 365 and how to do it with the best available solution.

Don’t miss our latest arrival on: https://www.shoviv.com/pst-to-office365.html

How to Import PST to Office 365?

MS Outlook has an import and export feature through which we can import PST to Office 365 manually.

Export to a PST File

Open Control Panel and click Mail (Microsoft Outlook 2016) (32-bit).
On the Mail Setup dialog box, click the Show Profiles option.
In the Mail dialog box, click the drag-down arrow under the always use this profile option.
Select Outlook, and click Apply > OK.
Now open Microsoft Outlook.
On the taskbar, go to the File tab > Open & Export > Import/Export.
In the Import and Export Wizard, select Export to a file. Click Next.
In the next dialogue box, select Outlook Data File (.pst). Click Next.
In the next dialog box, you can either select the entire PST file or any specific mailbox folder. Click Next to go-ahead.
Click the Browse option to choose a location where you want to create this new PST file.
Give a name to this file and click OK to save.
Now choose if you want to avoid duplicate items. Then click finish.

Close Outlook and open the control panel. Click Mail Microsoft Outlook 2016 (32-bit).

In the mail setup dialogue box, click on Show profile. Click the drag-down arrow under the“Always use this profile” option. Choose “Outlook 365 email”, and click Apply> OK.

Import PST File

Open MS Outlook. In the taskbar, click the File tab>Open & Export> Import/Export.
In the import and export wizard, select Import from another program or file. Click Next.
In the Import dialogue box, choose “Outlook data file (PST). Click Next.
In the next step, click the browse button to find the PST file you need to import. Choose the PST file and click Open.
Choose the option “Do not import duplicates”. Click Next. Click Finish.

Limitations of the manual method

The drawbacks of the manual methods are listed beneath:

It is time-consuming.
It involves a lot of complex steps.
You have to upload PST files one by one.
Even a single error can mean major data loss.
You need to be an experienced user to do it successfully.

Now that you know how to manually export Office 365 mailboxes to PST & Import PST to Office 365, you should be aware that both need the expertise to handle. In a normal situation, you would need to get access to the two different tools that would Export Office 365 Mailboxes to PST & Import PST to Office 365. Fortunately, there is a single solution that has been extensively recommended by users and experts alike.

The ideal solution: Shoviv Exchange Server Suite

If you think that you cannot export Office 365 to Outlook PST & Import PST to Office 365 manually, you need to look into the other solution which is ideal for the process. You should try a third-party solution called Shoviv Exchange Server Suite which can do both under a single roof. It is one of its kind tool which use advanced algorithms to tackle complex tasks effortlessly and to handle both the conversions under one roof.

It can effortlessly export Office 365 mailbox to PST & Import PST to Office 365 in just a few easy steps. This is a professional solution that has been created after extensive research about the needs of email users. This tool works at high speed and offers an astounding variety of specialized features that enable the tool to effortlessly export Office 365 mailboxes to PST and Import PST to Office 365 and a lot more. You don’t have to be an experienced user to deal with this tool. It is highly user-friendly and enables even first time users to easily do multiple additional tasks such as :

Easily recover EDB, OST, and PST Files
Import EDB Mailboxes to PST Files, Live Exchange, and Office 365 Mailboxes
Export OST Files into PST Files, Office 365, and Live Exchange Mailboxes
Import PST Files into Live Exchange and Office 365 Mailboxes
Export/Import Live Exchange and Office 365 Mailboxes & vice-versa

So, if you have been looking for a safe and reliable solution to export Office 365 mailboxes to PST & Import PST to Office 365, the Shoviv Exchange Server Suite is the ideal solution that you can use right now. This is an all in one solution and you should certainly not miss a chance to try it once. A free trial version of this tool is also available to download. The trial version allows the processing of the first fifty items per folder.

If you want to try it, you can have a look at the free demo by Clicking Below.

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Stuart

Stuart Clark is working as a technical content writer at Shoviv Software for the last 5 years. He specializes in crafting informative and engaging articles for diverse audiences. With a solid understanding of complex technologies, he explains complex concepts in a simpler manner that Leyman users can also understand easily. He has vast expertise in writing articles related to email migration and conversion niches. Apart from that, he likes to research newer technologies and gain knowledge to stay updated with the current trends.