The Importance of Backing up Office 365 Emails

Office 365 email backup refers to the process of creating duplicates of your essential emails and data to ensure their protection against any potential data loss. Data backup is an ideal strategy for safeguarding your business-critical digital information. As the owner of a company or an individual professional, we often send emails to communicate with clients or staff. These emails contain our most valuable and critical conversations and data.

backup emails

Data backup is essential for safeguarding our Office 365 emails and the data they contain. It enables you to preserve important emails and files from unforeseen and unexpected data loss resulting from common occurrences such as system crashes, malware infections, hard drive corruption, or failures. When it comes to Office 365 emails, there's no denying that they are secure and fully encrypted, ensuring 100% protection.

However, there remain numerous possibilities of losing crucial emails owing to the high volume you frequently receive. Accidentally, you might delete them without intention, or occasionally, due to technical issues with Office 365 emails, you could become unable to access your messages. Another limitation of Office 365 is that it only provides 5 GB of free storage. If you surpass this limit, it becomes necessary to create a backup of your important emails.

Manually Backup Emails from Office 365

Along with the widespread usage of online messaging, the challenge arises of securely backing up sensitive email data that can be highly vulnerable. You are constantly exposed to risks such as accidental deletion, disasters, computer virus attacks, hacker breaches, and more. Furthermore, email data is the most sought-after documentation for audits and other processes. Therefore, it is crucial to back up all your essential emails from Office 365 to ensure the safety and easy accessibility of your valuable data. Below are two methods to quickly back up your Office 365 emails.

    1. Method 1: Save Office 365 Emails as PST
    2. Method 2: Export Office 365 Emails as HTML

Method 1: Save Office 365 Emails as PST

Saving Office 365 emails as PST files is the simplest method, but before saving or downloading your Office 365 emails, whether as PST or HTML format, you need to set up your Office 365 account in Outlook. Once you've successfully configured it, follow these detailed steps:

Step 1. Open the Outlook app, and click on "File" in the top left corner.

click file

Step 2. Select "Import and Export" from the dropdown menu of options.

choose import and export

Step 3. In the Import and Export Wizard, you'll see three options. Select "Export to a file" and click "Next."

export to a file and next

Step 4. Select "Outlook Data File (.pst)" and click "Next".

Outlook Data File

Step 5. Select the desired folders you want to save and click "Next".

save and click next

Step 6. Here, you need to select the destination folder on your PC. Choose "Replace Duplicates with Items Exported" and click "Finish."

finish

Upon completing all the aforementioned steps, wait for a brief moment. The chosen email folders will be downloaded from Office 365 to your system.

Method 2: Export Office 365 Emails as HTML

Exporting Office 365 emails as HTML is also a simple process, similar to the PST method we discussed earlier. Now, let's learn another approach to export Office 365 emails as HTML. Just follow these few easy steps:

Step 1. Open Outlook and select the desired emails that you want to export as HTML.

select email

Step 2. Click on "File" from the left-hand side and select "Save As" from the dropdown options menu.

choose save as

Step 3. You will be redirected to your system folders to choose the save location. In this step, you need to select "HTML" from the "Save as type" option and then click "Save".

save

Now, your selected emails will be saved on your system as HTML files.

Bonus Tip: Backup Office 365 Emails via Outlook Backup Software Additional Tip: Protect Your Office 365 Emails with Outlook Backup Solution

Nobody wants to lose their data, and manual backups require additional time and effort. To save your time and effort and avoid any hassle, you can utilize tools like Todo Backup Home, a professional Outlook backup software. This tool enables you to automate the backup process for your critical Office 365 emails. Todo Backup provides straightforward and user-friendly features and options for scheduling backups.

Todo Backup Home is a versatile backup and recovery software designed for Windows 11/10/8/7 users. It is one of the top choices for backing up Outlook emails and profiles. This tool enables you to backup files, disks, systems, partitions, and more. Additionally, it allows you to create an ISO image from a hard drive and clone your hard drive. Furthermore, it facilitates the backup of your PC game saves and cherished games. Most notably, it offers 250GB of free cloud storage for your convenience.

Here are the step-by-step instructions for backing up your emails:

Note: You should add your Office 365 account to Outlook first. (Translation: Please note that you should first add your Office 365 account to Outlook.)

Step 1. Launch Todo Backup on your computer and click Create Backup on the home screen. Then, hit the big question mark to select backup contents.

backup outlook mail step 1

Step 2. Among the four backup options, click "Apps Data".

backup outlook mail step 2

Step 3. You'll then see all the apps that can be backed up. Locate and check the "Microsoft Outlook" option. Select the mailbox addresses from which you wish to back up emails, contacts, or calendars, and click "OK".

backup outlook mail step 3

Step 4. Next, you'll need to select a location to save the Outlook backup by clicking on the illustrated area.

backup outlook mail step 4

Step 5. The backup location can be another local drive on your computer, an external hard drive, network, cloud, or NAS. Generally, we recommend using an external physical drive or cloud to store the backup files.

backup outlook mail step 5

Step 6. If interested, you can customize settings such as setting an automatic backup schedule for daily, weekly, monthly, or upon specific events, and creating differential and incremental backups by clicking on the Options button. Once done, click "Backup Now". The Outlook backup process will commence. When complete, the finished backup task will be displayed on the left side in a card format.

backup outlook mail step 6

The ultimate decision-making power.

In the corporate realm, the leakage or loss of data and emails can have a significant impact on the entire organization. Hence, it is crucial to ensure the utmost security and reliability in protecting your emails. To achieve this, you need to create a backup of your Office 365 emails, as outlined in the two methods discussed earlier regarding "how to backup Office 365 emails". Once you have secured your vital email files, be it in PST or HTML format, you should utilize Tools Todo Backup to safeguard important emails and other data indefinitely. Tools Todo Backup serves as a secure haven for preserving crucial and confidential information.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Is Office 365 email the same as Outlook? No, Office 365 email and Outlook are not the same, but they are related. Office 365 is a cloud-based suite of productivity tools offered by Microsoft, which includes email services. The email service within Office 365 is called Exchange Online, and it allows users to access their emails, calendar, and contacts through various clients, including Outlook. Outlook, on the other hand, is a desktop email client and a part of the Microsoft Office suite. It can be used to manage not only Office 365 email accounts but also other email services like Gmail or Yahoo Mail. Outlook provides a user interface for accessing and organizing emails, scheduling appointments, managing tasks, and more. So while Outlook can be used to access Office 365 email, they are separate products with different functionalities.

Outlook is a web-based email client for Office 365 subscribers. In contrast, the traditional Microsoft Office suite includes an Outlook mail client application. This version of Outlook is pre-installed on Windows systems. Users can opt to use Outlook versions 2007, 2010, 2013, or 2016. Lastly, Outlook.com is a free web-based email service, formerly known as Hotmail.com.

2. How do I access my Office 365 email using Outlook?

You can easily access your Office 365 email via Outlook by following these simple steps: 1. Launch the Outlook app on your computer or head to the official Outlook web version at . 2. If you're using the web version, you'll be asked to sign in. Type your Office 365 email address in the email field (usually something like yourname@yourdomain.onmicrosoft.com). 3. Next, enter the password associated with your Office 365 account. 4. Click on "Sign in" or hit Enter. 5. On first-time access, you might need to give Outlook permission to access your account. Confirm the prompt or complete any extra steps as needed. 6. Once signed in, your Office 365 inbox will appear, letting you read, send, and manage your emails. Now you can easily navigate and use your Office 365 email within Outlook.

  • Visit the Microsoft 365 sign-in page or Outlook.com.
  • Enter your email address and password, and sign in.

3. Does Office 365 include Outlook? Yes, Office 365 includes Outlook. Outlook is a powerful email and calendar application that also provides features such as contact management, task tracking, and note-taking. It is one of the core components of the Office 365 suite, allowing users to stay organized and communicate effectively in both personal and professional environments.

Indeed, if you subscribe to Office 365, Outlook comes bundled as part of the suite, alongside other applications such as Microsoft Teams, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneDrive, and so on.

4. Why isn't my Outlook 365 email functioning properly?

If your Outlook 365 email is not functioning properly and you're encountering issues such as difficulty signing in, inability to send or receive emails, and receiving error messages, there could be various other problems with your Outlook 365 email. To identify the specific error you're experiencing and apply the corresponding solution, visit learn.microsoft.com for guidance tailored to your Outlook 365 email issue.