backup solution for office 365
How to back up emails from Microsoft Office 365
For the majority of businesses, email is an integral part of their workflow and communication, and in fact, there are more than 3.9 billion active email users worldwide, with Gmail and Outlook 365 leading the pack for enterprise and corporate accounts.
What is backup outlook 365?
For most of your employees, it is normal to send important data and information via email without giving value to the data again. However, without a proper backup or recovery plan, losing email (accidental or not) could put your company's data, compliance, and overall productivity at risk.
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Read on to learn more about Microsoft Office 365 native backup features, and why SaaS backup should be part of your overall data security strategy, from backing up your Microsoft 365 email messages.
365 Backup Explained
When you use Microsoft 365, the platform preserves your email and to some extent, but does not actually back up your data, and Microsoft 365 operates under a shared responsibility model, which means that the service will share with you in the following scenarios:
- Datacenter security - physical and network-based
- Data storage, redundancy, and redundancy
- Its core principles ("If we can't protect people, we don't deserve their trust") govern Microsoft's security policy.
- Protection from major events affecting their data centers such as hardware or software failures, natural disasters, power outages, operating system errors, etc.
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But when it comes to email data, accidental or malicious deletion of the data is the responsibility of the organization, and instead of the true Microsoft 365 backup service, the software only offers archiving features, Exchange and IMAP servers archive your email automatically, keeping items available for a while specific time. There are two ways you can back up your email: automatically and manually.
AutoArchive in Microsoft 365
You will be able to access your archived emails from anywhere, anytime. The AutoArchive files can be found at: C:\Users\YourUserName\Documents\Outlook Files\archive.pst. And if you want to backup items locally on your computer, you can automatically move or delete old items using AutoArchive, or export them to a .pst file.
Manual Archive in Microsoft 365
You can archive your email using the following steps:
1. Select File > Open & Export > Import/Export.
2. Select Export to a file, then select Next.
3. Select Outlook Data File (.pst), and select Next.
4. Select the mail folder you want to backup and select Next.
5. Specify a location and name for the backup file, then select Finish.
6. If you want to protect access to your files, create and confirm a password, then select OK.
You can also set up custom archive settings based on your needs.
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While these options are useful, backing up with Microsoft 365 has its limitations and may not be the best way to back up data. The biggest drawback of Microsoft 365 Archive capabilities is the aging periods of items, and once an item reaches the end of its aging period it is automatically deleted from Microsoft 365 For companies looking for a comprehensive and consistent backup system, this may not be ideal, and the statute of limitations period for various items is as follows:
limitation period folder
Incoming mail and drafts 6 months
Deleted Items 2 Months
Outbox 3 months
calendar 6 months
6 month assignments
6 months notes
6 months magazine
Use Backupify to back up Microsoft 365
While there are some big setbacks to Microsoft 365 archive options, there are other ways you can ensure your data is backed up and protected. The cloud can go beyond that.
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With a SaaS backup solution for Microsoft 365, such as Backupify, you can ensure that your accounts and data survive whatever the circumstances and Backupify provides automated and routine backups in Microsoft's Datto cloud, where you can access your data anytime, anywhere.