Office 365 has multiple features and services which are specially designed to help businesses to reduce their dependence on on-premises IT resources. It also offers great flexibility and enhanced security. But like any other data, Office 365 mailbox can also be backed up. Usually, this is done in PST format. And if you want to migrate Office 365 mailbox to Outlook, then also you need to save in PST format. However, there is no special feature available in the Office 365 for this need – but the Office 365 feature eDiscovery can be used to export the Office 365 mailbox to a PST file.

Step-by-step procedure to back up Office 365 mailbox to PST (using eDiscovery tool)

1. Login to Office 365 and go to Admin center.
2. In Admin center panel, go to Reports option and click Security & Compliance.
3. In Security & Compliance center, click the Reports dashboard option which will take you to the dashboard.
4. Click Permissions. It will have multiple tools listed. Among them is eDiscovery Manager tool which will export the Office 365 mailbox to PST. Check it, and then click Edit role group.
5. Now, go to Choose eDiscovery Manager where you need to choose a single or multiple accounts which will have the authority to export the mailbox.
6. Click Add.
7. Choose accounts, and click Add.Click Done.
8. Click Save.
9. Now, go to Search & Investigation. Here, choose the Content search option. Click the (+) button to add new Search content.
10. Input name of the search content, and choose the desired options from where you want to search the content.
11. The next window will let you choose if you want to put a keyword in the search content. But if you want to search the whole content, then leave it empty.
12. After the search process is completed, the user can easily export the search item in PST format. Click the Start Export option.
13. In Exports search results window, choose the desired options among the available and click Start Export.
14. The tool starts exporting data and you can download the download exported results to see the whole migration report.
15. In Export search results, you can copy the URL which will be used in the eDiscovery PST export tool and paste it there.
16. Copy the selected URL in eDiscovery PST Export tool, provide a destination to store the migrated data, and click Start Export. The migration will start.

Automated method

If you do not want to go through this tiresome, error-prone, or time taking the process of manually exporting the Office 365 mailbox to PST, then use Kernel Office 365 Backup & Restore which can easily access the Office 365 mailbox and save it in PST format at the user-defined location. Office 365 Backup tool has a highly simplified user-interface which any user with very office 365 credentials can use.