Forum Discussion
online backup of users email
Let me know your intention little more in details .
I do not see any other mechanism to backup your emails other than exporting a .pst file. there is one more thing , its call .ost (Offline Outlook Data File) its only applicable for O365 and other online email systems ...
Please refer this article ..
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/introduction-to-outlook-data-files-pst-and-ost-222eaf92-a995-45d9-bde2-f331f60e2790
- so in simple terms, exporting to pst file in the only method to backup O365 emails.
we are exploring what way to backup users emails if they resign suddenly and try something funny by deleting all their emails in their mailboxExporting to PSTs is hardly a backup as well, and can get you intro trouble especially if you need to meet compliance requirements. Use the hold functionality as already mentioned above. For "leavers", you can simply use the Inactive mailboxes functionality, which is free: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/securitycompliance/create-and-manage-inactive-mailboxes
In this scenario, preservation policy's should do fine! All mails/ changes gets saved so it wouldn't matter if the users tried to delete them! Also company routines to block user/ changing password and so on should be done in this cases!
Read more on retention here:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/securitycompliance/retention-policies
Although, just as a sidenote on your question, Using third party backup tools - backups of mails can be done
For example:
https://www.veeam.com/blog/how-backup-office-365-email.html
Adam
- Turning on preservation / retention policy on email will keep backed up because even if email gets deleted you can still get to it. I guess it depends on the goal. For most people the retention policy is plenty. If you need point in time backups then you’re going to have to get a third party solution.
- By the way, Office 365 does not provide "pure" backup tools / features for both e-mails and documentos so you have to use the "workarounds" you have in the platform or evaluate a third party product
- Just to add to the guys above, if you are considering a third party solution such as Acronis, AvePoint, Splunk, etc make sure you understand what it is the actually backed up and how.
I dont think there is any single third party tool to backup everything in 365. They mainly centre around email, sharepoint and OneDrive.
Best, Chris
