21/12/2022 18:00 How to Export an Office 365 Mailbox to PST - [Step-by-Step]

How to Export an Office 365 Mailbox to PST –

[Step-by-Step]
Last Updated on September 8, 2022 by Rudy Mens 23 Comments

In some use-cases, you might want to export Office 365 mailboxes to a PST file.
For example when a user leaves the organization, legal purposes, or when you
want to migrate a mailbox to another mail service.

Users can export their own mailbox through the Outlook client, but also as an
admin we can easily export a complete mailbox through the Office 365 Admin
Center.

In this article, I am going to explain how you can export an Office 365 mailbox to
pst.

Requirements to Export Mailbox to PST in Office 365

We are going to use the Content Search and eDiscovery Export Tool to export an
Office 365 mailbox to PST. To use the Content Search you will need to have the
eDiscovery Manager role in the Microsoft 365 Compliance center.

A global administrator doesn’t have this role by default, so first, we are going to
give your account the proper permissions. You will need to be a global
administrator to change permissions.

1. Log in at the Microsoft 365 Admin Center

2. In the menu, click on Compliance to open the Compliance Admin Center.

3. Click on Permissions

4. And open the Compliance Center Roles

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Compliance Center Permissions

5. Select eDiscovery Manager

6. Make sure that the Export Role is listed in the Assigned Roles (otherwise
add it)

7. Edit the eDiscovery Administrator

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8. Click on Choose eDisovery Administrator or Edit

9. Click + Add

10. Lookup your own account and add it to the list

11. Clic Save to complete

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We have now the proper permissions to start a Content Search and export an
Office 365 mailbox to pst. To apply the new permissions it’s best to log out, close
the tab and log back in again.

Office 365 Export Mailbox to PST

To export a mailbox out of Office 365 we first need to create a Content Search that
will collect all the mail of the specified user. Then we can export the result to a PST
file with the eDiscovery Export Tool.

Note
Only the browser Edge is supported to download the eDiscovery Export Tool.

Their are browser extensions available for Chrome and Firefox that solve this issue and
allows you to download and use the eDiscovery Export Tool

Chome : Meta4 ClickOnce

Firefox : Breez ClickOnce

1. Open the Microsoft 365 Compliance Center

Open https://compliance.microsoft.com/

2. Create a new Content Search

– Select Content Search in the menu under Solutions

– Click + New Search

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3. Enter a name and description

Give your content search a recognizable name and description and click Next.
This helps you later with identifying the correct content search.

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4. Select Exchange Mailboxes

To export a mailbox, turn Exchange Mailboxes on and click on Choose users,

groups, or Teams

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5. Select the mailbox to Export

The next step is to select the mailbox that we want to export. Select or search
the correct user and click on Done

And click on Next to continue to the Conditions.

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6. Leave Conditions empty

We want to export the complete mailbox, so we can leave the conditions empty.
Just click Next

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7. Complete the Content Search

Review your Content Search and click Submit to start it.

Click Done to close the New Search screen

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8. Wait for the search to complete

Depending on the mailbox size it can take a couple of minutes to complete the
content search. Wait for the status to change to Completed in the Content
Search scene. (Click Refresh occasionally to update the status)

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9. Export the Office 365 Mailbox to PST

1. Click on the Content Search that we have just created

2. Select Actions

3. Choose Export results

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10. Export Options

We can now select what and how we want to export our mailbox.

– Output Options: All items, including ones that have unrecognized format…

– Export Exchange Content as: One PST file for each Mailbox.

Click Export to start the export

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11. Download the Office 365 export mailbox PST file

Again, it can take a couple of minutes for the download file to get ready.

– Open the Export tab in the content search screen

– Select the Export job to view the status

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12. Download eDiscovery Export Tool

To download the PST files we will need to use the eDiscovery Export Tool.

As mentioned earlier in the blue note, you will need to use Edge for this step or
use a ClickOnce browser extension in Chrome or Firefox.

Click Download Results to download the tool

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13. Approve the download

A new tab will open that will download the eDiscovery Tool. Click Open in the
security warning

14. Copy the Export Key

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Before you can start the download, you will need to copy the export key from
the Compliance Center.

15. Download the PST File

The last step is to start the download in the eDiscovery Export Tool.

1. Paste the key that we copied

2. Enter a location for the PST file

3. Expand Advanced Options and give the PST file a meaningful name

And click on Start

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16. Wait for the download to finish

Depending on the size of the mailbox, the download can take some time. Wait
for it to

finish and open the PST file in the location that you specified.

You can also use these steps to download multiple mailboxes at once. Just select
multiple users or mailboxes at step 5 and makes sure that you select one pst file
for each mailbox in step 10.

Office 365 Export PST File Size Limit

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The default file size of the exported PST files is 10 GB. You can increase or decrease
the file size, but keep in mind that if you make it too large, to change of file
corruption increases as well.

Making the file size smaller can be useful if you need to place the files on
removable media.

To change the file size you will need to create a registry key.

1. Close the eDiscovery Export Tool

2. Create a new txt file and name it pstsize.reg (note the extention)

3. Add the following content

1. Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 Copy

2. [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Exchange\Client\eDiscovery\ExportTool
]
3. "PstSizeLimitInBytes"="21474836480"

4. Change the PstSizeLimitInBytes to the desired value:

Size in bytes Size in GB

4294967296 4 GB

8589934592 8 GB

21474836480 20 GB

32212254720 30 GB

5. Save the file and close it.

6. Double-click the newly created reg file to import it. Click yes twice to the
warnings.

You can remove the registry key to change the value back to 10 GB or change the
value of the key to 10737418240.

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Restart the eDiscovery tool to export the PST files in the new size.

Export or Backup Office Outlook contacts

When users leave the organization they sometimes want to take their Outlook
contacts with them. Even though you can easily export them through Outlook, you
could also use the Content Search method to export only the contacts.

Follow all the steps described earlier, but add a condition in Step 6:

1. Click Add Condition

2. Select Type

3. Click Add/Remove more options

4. Select Contacts

Follow all the other steps to export the Outlook contact to a PST file.

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Use a third-party tool to Export Mailbox to PST

There are also third-party tools available to export Office 365 mailboxes to PST
files. For example, Kernel Export Office 365 to PST Tool (10% discount with code
“lazyadmin”), SysTools Backup and Restore Office 365, or Stellar Exporter for Office
365. Now I am not going to do a full review of these tools, but what is great about
these kinds of tools is that they give you more control and feedback about the
export.

SysTools Backup & Restore

For a single mailbox is this overkill, but if you have to export multiple mailboxes, or
do this on a more regular basis, then this tool is a real-time-saver. It makes
exporting Office 365 mailboxes to PST a lot easier.

Wrapping Up
I hope this article helped you with your Office 365 Export mailbox to PST. Keep in
mind that the content search method can take some time. If you need to export
multiple mailboxes to PST then using a third-party tool might be a better idea.

They are more convenient to use and don’t cost really that much.

If you have any questions, just drop a comment below.

Exchange Online Microsoft 365 Office 365

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23 thoughts on “How to Export an Office 365 Mailbox to

PST – [Step-by-Step]”

Manu
November 25, 2022 at 19:44 | Reply

Excellent Article, straight to the point and updates to the latest Interface!
Thank you sir!

Dilan
November 16, 2022 at 15:40 | Reply

Very usefull content. thank you somuch for sharing your knowledge.

Stefane Monteiro
October 26, 2022 at 20:16 | Reply

Ótimo artigo, nos auxiliou demais. Porém quando tentamos efetuar o

passo-a-passo 10. Opções de exportação, ocorre um erro 500 e não dar
andamento ao processo 11.

Poderia nos auxiliar mais uma vez?

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Rudy Mens
October 27, 2022 at 08:52 | Reply

And you are using the browser Edge?

td
July 28, 2022 at 09:41 | Reply

great Article

Mitchell
May 23, 2022 at 22:19 | Reply

I’d love to know how to import exported PST into a mailbox at another 365
domain. When I try to do it manually through Outlook, it doesn’t maintain
the correct inbox/subfolder structure.

Rudy Mens
May 24, 2022 at 08:18 | Reply

That is strange. And if you just open the PST in Outlook, does it then
show the correct structure? You could then maybe move the folders from
the PST to the inbox.

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Jane
April 22, 2022 at 21:05 | Reply

Really appreciate this article since every other articles still has the old
eDiscovery archiving in place. Thank you for the thorough instruction.

JP4
April 11, 2022 at 21:48 | Reply

This was the best most detailed instruction I’ve seen – thanks!

Khalikur Rehman Shaikh

March 9, 2022 at 08:52 | Reply

Thanks a ton!!! This Post really help to export pst’s from O365.

David
March 7, 2022 at 22:10 | Reply

How long is the export available?

Love your posts. A great help to all the incompetentadmins (as opposed to
lazy). 🙂

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Rudy Mens
March 8, 2022 at 09:31 | Reply

The content search will remain available until you delete it. So you can
generate and export at any moment when you need.

Bhanu
February 18, 2022 at 11:26 | Reply

Great Post. We are new to O365 and this article really helped us to export
the PSTs.

Alex Medina
January 12, 2022 at 16:02 | Reply

Once you have successfully downloaded the export, will the user’s data
that you exported stay within the 0365 admin center when you remove the
user from the organization?

Thanks!

Rudy Mens
January 12, 2022 at 20:31 | Reply

That depends on your retention policies. Export is only a copy of the data.
If you delete the user, by default the mailbox will also be deleted. I

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thought after 30 days, but not sure about that (need to check).

But the export will remain available ofcourse.

Victor Kaplan
December 8, 2021 at 18:35 | Reply

This article is great. I’d only add that step 13 in the process needs to be
performed with MS Edge or it fails.

I am trying my first 365 eDiscovery export . Before the cloud, I’d export
straight from the Exchange server. After moving to the cloud, I’d connect
the account to an Outlook and export from there.

My first export from 365 is going smoothly, but it’s taking over a day!!
When the process started it said that the estimated time was 2 days and
some, then it started going down, I didn’t take it very seriously, but I guess
I should have. I started the process about 18 hours ago and it’s still
running, and it says that the estimated remaining time is 1 day and 17
hours.

What’s going on??

Thank you!

Rudy Mens
December 8, 2021 at 20:40 | Reply

Yeah, step 13 is best performed in Edge. But Firefox with the ClickOnce
extension also seems to work fine.

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About the speed, how large is the mailbox, and what is the download
speed of your connection?

Eugene Beran
December 8, 2021 at 15:02 | Reply

Yeah, getting that tool working was a pain since it kept wanting to use IE
and I wasted time trying to get it to go. Finally got it working with FireFox
after installing the clickonce extension.

When the download was done for the single mailbox I had chosen, I had 4
PST files, numbered sequentially.

I had selected one PST for each mailbox, so I’m curious why. This mailbox is
over 36GB and each PST seemed to be limited to ~10GB, so I had three
equal size PSTs and the fourth one was 6GB.

Is there an export file limit size?

Rudy Mens
December 8, 2021 at 17:00 | Reply

Yes, the default file size limit is 10 GB. You can increase it, I have just
updated the article with the information to increase the PST file size. But
don’t make it too large, because you risk corrupt PST files.

And thanks for the ClickOnce tip, I have added it to the article.

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Herbert
December 7, 2021 at 22:24 | Reply

Sorry i made a typo, I tried to say that not all browsers can be used for the
Export tool. Edge works for me, Firefox not. I thought Chrome was not
supported either buy I am probably wrong on that one.

Rudy Mens
December 8, 2021 at 09:51 | Reply

A yes, that is correct. Chrome is officially not supported, but it working

perfectly. Think after Edge switches to the same engine. But good point, I
will add it to the article.

Herbert
December 7, 2021 at 19:39 | Reply

Nice post. The eDiscovery Export Tool isnt working in Edge. I believe
Chrome or Firefox doesn’t work.

Rudy Mens
December 7, 2021 at 21:42 | Reply

Which version of Edge are you using? I use Edge to create the
screenshots and test everything, and it’s working perfectly fine here. I am
using version 96.0.1054 (Help and feedback > About). Maybe a security
setting in Edge that is preventing you from downloading the tool?
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Also in Chrome am I able to download the tool.

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Hey! I'm Ruud. I work as a SysAdmin in the Netherlands and I love to write about IT, Office 365, Smart
Home stuff, and PowerShell. 

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