A shared mailbox is a feature of Microsoft Exchange that allows multiple users from the same business to access the same email. Teams, groups, and offices use shared mailboxes to share info and enhance email communication. With the amount of data on the shared mailbox, there's always a need to back up and save that data somewhere.
That's why you should export shared mailboxes to PST files. Doing so is essential. Moreover, there are many reasons to export Office 365 shared mailbox to PST, which will be covered below.
As you try to export shared mailboxes to PST, you must realize the importance of data backup. Join us to celebrate 2024 World Backup Day. Let's take the pledge, and make data backups a regular part of your day.
Why Is It Handy to Export a Shared Mailbox to PST?
You want to export your shared mailboxes to PST files for several reasons. Here are some of those reasons:
- Recovery capability: If you ever end up losing mailbox data, you'll quickly be able to recover your deleted emails.
- Offline access: You won't constantly have to stay online to read emails. By using PST files, you can view emails offline.
- Reducing the mailbox size: Although not as necessary today as before, you can export the shared mailbox to a PST file and then delete the emails to reduce the size.
- Compliance: Some businesses in health and finance have to archive email data regularly.
- Migration: You can easily carry your emails if you need to move to a different computer or office.
There are many more reasons someone would want to export shared mailboxes to PST in Outlook or Office 365. Whatever your reasons are, you can find a guide to doing it below. It is also recommended to regularly backup your Outlook PST files after exporting mailboxes to PST, as this will allow you to store your files offline and provide added security and protection.
If you don't already have a shared mailbox, you'll be pleased to learn that creating one is relatively straightforward. Nevertheless, if you're having trouble doing it, there's this neat guide on creating a shared mailbox. If you follow the steps, you should have a shared mailbox quickly.
Four Methods for Exporting Shared Mailbox to PST
There are several methods to export shared mailboxes to PST in Office 365. Each of these methods has its advantages and disadvantages. Some require many steps but are visual, while others are textual and require knowledge of commands. Therefore, you should choose the methods accordingly.
Method 1: Export Office 365 Shared Mailbox to PST Using eDiscovery Manager
This guide will first cover using eDiscovery Export Tool to export Office 365 shared mailboxes to PST. It might seem complex, but you'll be alright if you follow the steps. You must:
- Open Microsoft 365 admin center and log in as the administrator.
- Go to the Security center under Admin centers and click Permissions.
- Now select the eDiscovery Manager.
- Use the Edit role group option.
- Assign Import and Export Roles to the Mailbox.
- In the role group, add your user account to the list of eDiscovery Administrators.
- Go to the Compliance tab. It's in the bottom left part under Security.
- Click Show all and select Content search. Then, choose New search.
- You'll now have to do a search query and find all emails you want to export. You can add various conditions when you click Add conditions. For our purposes, we'll add Type – Emails.
- After you add a condition, check Email messages under Type and choose Specific locations under Locations. Now hit the Modify button.
- Click the Choose users, groups, or teams button and select the admin user account.
- After you select the account, click Save > Save & run in the search area to run the query.
- The query will take some time to finish. Afterward, you can find it in your saved searches by clicking Back to saved searches at the top, under Content search.
- When the query finishes, click Export results in the top right corner.
- After you choose to export results, you'll see three output options, and you can decide how to export Microsoft Exchange content. Select the options you need. For our purposes, we chose the default option: One PST file for each mailbox.
- Scroll down and click Export.
- Close the dialog box and click Exports under Content search. Give it some time to appear. The export will also need some time to finish.
- (CAUTION) If you receive a warning that you need to use Microsoft Edge or Internet Explorer to download the results, open the same webpage in one of those browsers.
- Look at the Export key, copy it to the clipboard, and click Download results in the top right corner.
- Enter the export key and select where to save the PST file.
That's it for the eDiscovery Manager method. If you've followed the steps above, you should be successful in exporting the shared mailbox to PST in Office 365.
Method 2: Export Office 365 Shared Mailbox to PST Using Powershell
You can also export an Office 365 shared mailbox to PST with PowerShell. This method might be tricky, but you'll do fine following the steps. Here's how to do it using the Exchange Management Shell:
- Open Exchange Management Tools on your computer.
- Use the New-MailboxExportRequest command, like the one below:
New-MailboxExportRequest -mailbox <shared mailbox name> -filepath “<unc patch>”
- Add the
-IncludeFolderor-ExcludeFolderparameters to the command to include or exclude folders. For example, the include folder command looks like this and the exclude command works the same way:New-MailboxExportRequest -mailbox <shared mailbox name> -filepath “<unc patch>” -IncludeFolders “#Inbox#”, “#Outbox#”
- (OPTIONAL) You can use various commands besides the
MailboxExportRequestcommand. Here are a few:- This command adds a "less than" content filter to email export.
New-MailboxExportRequest -ContentFilter {(Received -lt ’01/01/2020′)} -Mailbox “<shared mailbox name>” -Filepath “<unc path>” - This command adds a "greater than" content filter to email export.
New-MailboxExportRequest -ContentFilter {(Received -gt ’01/01/2020′)} -Mailbox “<shared mailbox name>” -Filepath “<unc path>” - This command adds "less than" and "greater than" filters.
New-MailboxExportRequest -ContentFilter {(Received -gt ’01/01/2020′) -and (Received -gt ’01/07/2020′)} -IncludeFolders “#Inbox#” -Mailbox “<shared mailbox name>” -FilePath “<unc patch>”
- This command adds a "less than" content filter to email export.
- You can also check how the export is progressing by typing in the following command:
Get-MailboxExportRequest
Although this method seems complicated, you'll quickly learn what each parameter does if you closely examine the commands. You can efficiently export shared mailboxes to PST with the Exchange Management Shell.
Method 3: Export Shared Mailbox to PST Using Exchange Admin Center
Exporting mailboxes with the Exchange Admin Center (EAC) requires creating a shared location and having the correct permissions. Here's how to export the shared mailbox with EAC:
- Log in to the EAC.
- Click Permissions and then select Admin Roles.
- Click the Plus button to add an admin role.
- Assign the Import/Export role to the user who will export the mailbox.
- Now click Recipients, and then select Shared.
- You'll see the shared mailboxes here. Click the three-dot icon and select Export to a PST file.
- Select to either export the contents of the mailbox or the mailbox's archive. You can't do both at once.
- Choose where to save the PST file.
That's it when exporting shared mailboxes to PST files through the EAC.
Method 4: Export Shared Mailbox to PST Using Outlook
Finally, we come to the fourth and final method in this guide, which entails using Microsoft Outlook to export shared mailboxes to PST.
- Open Outlook on your computer. If you are an Office 365 user, you need to add your Office 365 Shared Mailbox account to Outlook first by clicking File > Info > Add Account.
- Log in with your Office 365 Shared Mailbox account to add it to Outlook. Otherwise, you can't export Office 365 shared mailbox to PST.
- Return to the File menu and click the Import/Export option.
- Navigate to Export to a file and hit Next.
- Choose Outlook Data File (.pst) next, and hit Next.
- Select the shared mailbox to export, tick the Include subfolders option, and hit Next.
- Once you pick the location to save it, click Finish.
That's how you do it within Outlook. Simple and easy.
Conclusion
Exporting shared mailboxes to PST files is a process many individuals and businesses use for several reasons. Whether due to compliance laws, migrating to a new computer or office, having offline access, or simply having a backup, you should regularly export shared mailbox data to PST.
Fortunately, there are several ways to do it. You can use the eDiscovery Manager, the Exchange Management Shell, the Exchange Admin Center, or Outlook. Whichever way you do it, back up your Outlook PST files regularly to avoid losing crucial data.