Outlook Mail Backup

Prerequisites

To back up mail, make sure your domain administrator is active (enabled), has a commercial or trial subscription for Backup for Microsoft 365 / Google Workspace. If you you are using Business product edition, make sure the users included in the backup have a commercial or trial subscription for Backup for Microsoft 365 / Google Workspace and appropriate backup is enabled for them.

To learn more about licensing, refer to the Licensing

Getting Started with Mail Backup

To enable Mail backup, click Configure Backup on the dashboard, then turn on Mail backup services. Select Apply to enabled users to apply this configuration to all enabled users.

Click Save to initiate mail backup processing. Consider, if enabled, Mail backup jobs are scheduled to start automatically twice per day.

To create the urgent mail backup, click the Backup Now button. The backup task will be created created and scheduled automatically. You can monitor the backup task processing using the Task Manager. Once the initial backup is completed, you can view backed up content.

You can export selected mail messages or mail folders to .PST file, as described in Export to PST chapter.

You can enable or disable the Mail Backup service for one or for multiple users on Users page as described in Manage Users and Groups.

After the initial backup is completed, you can create a restore job for selected messages, a restore job for selected folder to the same mailbox or to specified mailbox, or restore all backed up objects to the same mailbox or to specified mailbox. The following actions are available:

  • Root-level:
    • Restore All to run a restore job of all backed up Mail objects to the original location
    • Backup Now to initiate a backup job of Mail objects included in backup according to backup options
  • Folder-level
    • Restore Folder (selected folder only) to restore the selected mail folder to the original location
    • Restore Folder to (selected folder only) to restore the selected mail folder to the Restore folder of the specified user mailbox. You will be prompted to provide credentials for selected mailbox.
    • Delete Folder (selected folder only) to delete the selected mail folder
  • Item-level:
    • Restore (after the object(s) are selected) to run an item-level restore of the selected Mail object to the Restore folder
    • Restore To... (after the object(s) are selected) to run an item-level restore of the selected Mail object to the Restore folder of the different account mailbox. You will be prompted to provide credentials for credentials of the account you want to use as a restore destination.
    • Delete (after the object(s) are selected) to delete the selected Mail object. You will need to enter the alternate email password to confirm the deletion.

Configure Mail Backup Options

To configure backup options perform the following:

  1. Select Mail in the horizontal menu bar of the dashboard.
  2. Click Options on the horizontal menu bar
  3. Click Backup Options tab
  4. Choose any options you want, configure include or exclude rules.
  5. These rules will be applied to the next backup job for selected user(s). To apply these criteria to backup job for all domain users, select the Apply To All Domain Users check box, then click Save.

Create Backup Job for Selected Objects

You can back up specific messages in specific Outlook mail folders of the specific user.
To back up only selected mail messages, perform the following:

  1. Select a required user, then select the desired folder. By default, the Inbox folder is displayed, the rest of the mail folders are sorted according to the Exchange Online order. You can type the part of the folder name to speed up navigation. This search works on the fly, you can speed up the processing of the long folder lists.

Point to the mail folder to see the full path to the folder

  1. The list of messages might be very long and hard to manage. Use Enter Search Request box above this list to look for items matching the certain criteria. You can search for emails in all user mailboxes with All Users option selected in search box.

  2. Configure mail backup options. Click Save.

  3. Once you are done with configuring, get back to the Mail page.

  4. Click the Backup Now button. You will be notified about the backup job creating event.

To view the progress of the created backup job, open the Task Manager. In Actions, select Task Manager.

Create Restore Job for a Specified Scope

You can restore backed up specific messages in specific Outlook mail folders of specific user to a Restore folder.
To restore only selected mail messages perform the following:

  1. Select necessary user, then select the desired folder. By default, the Inbox folder is displayed, the rest of the mail folders are sorted according to the Exchange Online order. You can type the part of folder name to speed up navigation. This search works on the fly, you can speed up the processing of the long folder lists.
  2. The list of messages might be very long and hard to manage. Use Enter Search Request box above this list to look for items matching the certain criteria.
  3. Click Restore action. You will be notified about the backup job creating event. After restore job is completed, the restored message appears in Restore folder of selected user. To view the progress of the created restore job, open the Task Manager. In Actions, select Task Manager.

Create Restore Job for a Specified Folder

You can create a restore job to re-create the entire folder structure with its original content in the same mailbox or in specified mailbox:

  • To restore all folder items to the same mailbox, select the folder, then click Folder button and select Restore Folder option. Confirm the restore job start. If the selected folder exists, all messages will be restored in this folder. Selected folder will be recreated in case it is no longer available. will be restored to that folder.
  • To restore the entire folder to the specified mailbox, select the user, then click Folder button and select Restore Folder To... option. Pick an mailbox to restore the folder with all content to. Confirm the restore job start. If the selected folder exists, all messages will be restored in this folder. If the folder does not exist it will be created.

You will be notified about the backup job creating event. To view the progress of the created restore job, open the Task Manager. In Actions, select Task Manager.

Create Restore All Job

You can create a Restore All job to re-create the entire mailbox structure with its original folders in the same mailbox or in specified mailbox:

  • To restore all mailbox items to the same mailbox, select the user, then click Restore All button and select Restore All Mailbox option. Confirm the restore job start.
  • To restore all mailbox items to the specified mailbox, select the user, then click Restore All button and select Restore All Mailbox to... option. Pick an mailbox to restore all mailbox content to. Confirm the restore job start.

You will be notified about the backup job creating event. To view the progress of the created restore job, open the Task Manager. In Actions, select Task Manager.

Delete Folder from Backup

You can delete selected folder from backup.

  • To delete the folder, select the folder, then click Folder button and select Delete Folder option. Confirm the deletion job start by entering an alternate email password. All deletion operations require an alternate email configured.
  • You will be notified about the backup job creating event. To view the progress of the created deletion job, open the Task Manager. In Actions, select Task Manager.