How to Export Office 365 Mailbox to PST? 4 Easy Ways

  

Rollins Duke   
Published: July 29th, 2025 • 14 Min Read

Recently, Microsoft 365 has experienced multiple serious issues that have affected users across the globe. This has included Exchange Online outages, issues logging into the Microsoft 365 Admin Center, and even hacks targeting business data. When these outages occurred, users were unable to send or receive emails, manage accounts, or use important items in mailbox.

Hackers have taken email data from Microsoft’s 365. This raises major questions about cloud data security and data loss prevention. Some companies have lost entire mailboxes to accidentally delete or a hacker breach.

As a result, – many users are now opting to export Office 365 mailbox to PST file. A PST file is a single file that stores all your emails, attachments, contacts, and calendar events in a centralized and offline format. This is the best way to download Office 365 emails and recover local copies of anything you might need, even if Microsoft’s servers go down for maintenance or you get hacked.

However, there are several methods to export Microsoft 365 to PST. You can try utilizing eDiscovery to export PST from Office 365, but when trying to export, many users encounter technical issues such as “the Export request failed with status code 500”. Some people look for PowerShell commands to export Office 365 mailbox to PST, which is often another option when performing a mailbox export. However, Microsoft does not support direct download of PST for Office 365 mailbox.

This is why we have created this guide to give you step by step ways to export Office 365 emails to PST using multiple methods like eDiscovery Manager, PowerShell, Outlook, and a straightforward solution.

How to Export Office 365 Mailbox to PST?

Microsoft 365 does offer the option to export Office 365 email, attachments, and other content from the mailbox as a PST format. However, Microsoft 365 does not offer built-in functionality to export mailbox data to PST format (previously the New-MailboxExportRequest). In fact, Microsoft’s 365 currently has no export command. In any case, there are several viable options for administrators to export Office 365 emails to PST, including eDiscovery Content Search, PowerShell, or creating an Outlook configuration.

Out of these options, eDiscovery Content Search is the most primary manual solution for Office 365 administrators. The eDiscovery Content Search feature enables you to search your Exchange Online mailbox data and export it if required – essentially allowing you to download and then store locally your Outlook 365 emails and other mailbox data.

Prerequisites for Using eDiscovery to Export PST from Office 365

If you are starting the process to export Office 365 mailbox to PST. There are prerequisites that you must consider before the process.

• You must be a member of the Discovery Management role group.
• You must have the necessary permissions to export Microsoft 365 to PST.
• Make sure that you are using a computer that is running at least Windows 7 or later.
• The computer must have Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5 or greater installed.
• You must use the latest version of either Internet Explorer 11 or Microsoft Edge browser.
• To export O365 mailboxes to PST, you must have a valid Office 365 subscription with compliance features enabled.

Once you complete these checklists. You can now easily go through the methods to export Office 365 emails to PST.

Method 1: Export Office 365 Mailboxes to PST using eDiscovery

In the Microsoft Purview Compliance portal, there is an option for eDiscovery. This option helps you to search for the content and you can then start exporting Office 365 data to PST. But, it only works on Windows 11, 10, 8, and 7 OS. and you need Microsoft .Net Framework 4.5 or later edition. Also, it applies on Edge browser and must be granted permission from the Exchange Admin Center. After that, follow the steps below.

1. Login to your Microsoft Office 365 account using global admin credentials. Click on the Admin option for launching Microsoft 365 Admin Center.
   
2. Thereafter, choose the Security & Compliance option under Exchange Admin Centers.
   
3. Click on the Permissions option and drag it to eDiscovery Manager as shown on the respective screen.
   Attention: It is mandatory to assign the eDiscovery Manager role to access all the eDiscovery features
   
4. Check the eDiscovery Manager option. After that, click on the Edit icon for assigning important roles that are mandatory for the Discovery Management group.
5. By default, the role group is assigned to the mentioned roles such as Compliance Search, Case Management, Export, Hold, Preview, Review, and RMS Decrypt.
6. If the Export role is missing, then click on the Edit button to add the role group.
   
7. Thereafter, hit on More Resources and open the Microsoft Purview Compliance Portal. Now choose Content Search >> New Search option to export Office 365 data to PST.
   Attention: If you are unable to see the “Content Search” option, then make sure that you have successfully set the required eDiscovery permissions. Also, if you have made any changes to the eDiscovery permissions. It may take up to 24 hours to reflect.
   
8. After clicking on the New Search option, a new Wizard will appear. This wizard will allow you to customize all components of the content search options. Users can enter a search name and description. The location option permits you to specify mailbox data that you want to export.
   
9. After that, choose Conditions and set filters to export a PST from Office 365 eDiscovery. Set the required filters on the basis of Date, Sender/Author, Size (in bytes), Subject/Title, Retention Label, Message Kind, Participants, Type, Received, Recipients, Sender, Sent, Subject, To, Author, Title, Created, Last Modified, and File Type.
   
10. After setting and applying the desired filters, click on the Submit button to continue. Now, click on Done to close the current window and start searching.
11. The search process is now running in the background. Users can click on the Search option to check the search status.
    
12. Click the Actions button and select the Export Results option as shown in the following screenshot.
    
13. Under Export Results, choose the output option as All items including ones that have uncategorized format are encrypted or would not include for other reasons. Thereafter, click on the Export button.
    
14. After that, click on the Export tab and select search again to check whether the status is completed or not.
    
15. Once the export process is completed, you need to click on the Download Result tab. Do not forget to copy the Unique Key by clicking on the Copy to clipboard option. This is mandatory because the next step will ask for a unique Export Key.
    
16. The eDiscovery Export Tool will now start automatically after clicking on the Download Results. It will ask you to paste the export key that will be used to connect to the source. Browse the destination path to store the resultant PST file. Click the Start button to export the mailboxes from Office 365 to PST.
    

Using this method is easier, but because of improper configuration you may face errors like eDiscovery Export Tool stuck on calculating, you cannot start the application in the end or unable to start the eDiscovery tool from the admin center. If that is the case, then choose the next method for exporting Office 365 mailboxes into PST.

Method 2: Export Office 365 Mailbox to PST with Desktop Outlook

Users can easily connect their Office 365 account to their desktop Outlook and then export them in PST format. This method is lengthy, so we divided it into two parts. First part of the procedure is to connect your account with Outlook. Follow the steps mentioned below to export Office 365 emails to PST using Outlook:

Part 1: Connect Your Account to Export PST from Office 365

1. Run Microsoft Outlook on your computer, laptop or PC.
2. Thereafter, choose File >> Add Account option to continue.
3. Enter your email address and select the Advanced options.
4. Check the box “Let me set up my account manually” and choose “Connect.”
5. After that, select POP3 as the account type.
6. Enter POP3 settings i.e., POP Settings, SMTP Settings, Port Number, etc.
7. Fill your password and choose Connect to continue.

Part 2: Export Office to PST File with Built-in Feature

1. Firstly, start MS Outlook and select File >> Open & Export >> Import/Export.
2. Thereafter, choose Export to a file and press the Next button.
3. Select Outlook Data File (.pst) and choose Next to continue.
4. Check the required email folders to export and hit on the Next button.
5. Click Browse to set the destination path, enter the file name, and choose Finish.
6. Lastly, get the exported PST file from the selected destination path.

Other than these two methods, there is an advanced solution that can export Office 365 mailbox to PST. The next method uses PowerShell. So, let’s see how it’s done.

Method 3: Export Office 365 Data to PST using PowerShell

First of all, you cannot directly export O365 mailbox to PST using PowerShell. However, you can synchronize your account with desktop Outlook. Then, you can use the Import/Export feature to get your PST file. Also, there is no guarantee that it will work or not. But if you want to try, follow the steps below.

• First we connect the PowerShell to your Exchange Online.
  “$UserCredential = Get-Credential”
Connect-ExchangeOnline -UserPrincipalName <userprincipalname> -UserCredential $UserCredentialin place of , type your actual principal name.
• With the help of this command we convert our mailbox to PST New-MailboxExportRequest -Mailbox -FilePath\\Server\SharedFolder\mailbox.pst
• To track the progress use this command Get-MailboxExportRequest
• After the process is complete, use the below command to remove the export request.Get-MailboxExportRequest | Remove-MailboxExportRequest

So, here are the manual ways to export Office 365 mailboxes to PST. They are free, but there are also issues in them that can cause you a lot of trouble.

How to Export Office 365 Mailbox to PST? Step-by-Step

1. Start the Tool on your Windows and Mac Computer. Then, click on the I am Admin option.
   
2. Enter your Office 365 user account email address in the given field and click the Login button.
   
3. Thereafter, it will open Microsoft’s official login window for secure log in to your O365 account. Here, enter the required password and details and sign in to continue exporting Office 365 mailboxes to PST.
   
4. Once it is connected, you can now get your data on the left-hand side. Click on the email and preview the content.
   
5. Now choose PST (Personal Storage Table) as a saving option from the listed options.
   
6. You can use the filter options to search for specific emails and export Office 365 to PST.
   
7. Press the Change button to browse to a different destination path according to your choice. Lastly click on the Backup option to export Office 365 mailbox to PST.
   

The software not only converts your emails, but also provides various features that can help you.

To Sum Up

Many users may have problems exporting Office 365 data into the PST file. But, after reading this article. Now, you can easily export Office 365 mailbox to PST. Here, we provide four different ways to easily export PST from Office 365. Properly follow these steps and you can have a PST file containing Microsoft 365. Other than that, we also explained the reasons to export Office 365 to PST. Therefore, in this you will get all the answers to your doubts, so read the guide to the end.