Understand - How to Archive Emails in Office 365 Successfully

Office 365 is the latest Office suite of Microsoft which is radically different from the previous versions of Microsoft Office. It allows for archiving mailboxes which provide users with extra mailbox storage space. This option of Office 365 is called In-Place Archiving. An archived email also provides an alternate storage location for the old emails. By doing this, it creates a backup file in PST format or EML format in the local computer system, which can be retrieved during the hazard situation or in case of data loss. Users can easily access their archive mailboxes by using MS Outlook. Apart from this, users can also move or copy the emails between primary mailboxes and the archived mailboxes. Because of these advanced features, a user must know about how to archive emails in Office 365 successfully. Therefore, in the upcoming section, we are going to explain different methods to create archive mailboxes in Office 365. A user can choose either manual method or the third-party tool according to their requirements.

Create an Archive Mailbox for Office 365

To create an archive mailbox, there are steps mentioned below to be followed:

1. First, open Office 365 and sign in as an administrator
2. Then, click on Admin & click Manage which is under the Exchange Online
3. After that, click on Users & Groups >> Mailboxes
4. Now, double-click on the mailbox that you need to archive
5. Next, from the mailbox details window, expand Mailbox Features >>click Archive
6. Finally, click on Enable option and click Save button two times.

Create an Archive Mailbox in a Hybrid Deployment

In an organization that has a hybrid deployment, there are limited circumstances which support to create an archive mailbox. These circumstances are mentioned below:

• Primary cloud-based mailbox with a cloud-based archive mailbox
• Primary on-premises mailbox with a cloud-based archive mailbox
• Primary on-premises mailbox with an on-premises archive mailbox

Organizations that contains hybrid deployment can use the Exchange Management Console on the on-premises coexistence server. It will manage mailboxes in Microsoft Exchange Online. Users can use following steps to create an archive mailbox in the hybrid deployment organization

1. First, open the MS Exchange Management Console from on-premises coexistence server
2. In the console hierarchy, expand recipient configuration & click on Mailbox option
3. Now, double-click on the mailbox which you need to enable the Archive option
4. Finally, click on the Mailbox option, then click on Enable Archive.

Limitation of Manual Procedure to Archive Emails in Office 365

The above mentioned manual procedure to archive emails in Office 365 has some consequences. Such as, when a non-technical user wants to take backup of emails, for them, it may be hard to understand the long process of creating archive emails. If a single step of an archive is missed by mistake then it is possible to get wrong output or data loss. As it is described, the manual procedure has a number of steps and also it takes a long time to create an archive emails in Office 365. Moreover, the manual process needs to sign in as an administrator, which creates the problem for those users who do not have admin credentials. It is unable to transfer multiple users account at a time by manually.

Alternate option to Create an Archive Emails

The manual procedure has some disadvantages which are discussed above. To overcome such limitations, users can use a reliable third party solution i.e. EmailDoctor Office 365 Backup software. It is an amazing solution that helps to create an archive email mailbox in Office 365. This software is used to archive or export Exchange Online mailboxes to local Outlook PST file or EML file. The tool can archive entire Office 365 data item such as emails, contacts, and calendars. It has the facility to apply name convention to export the emails locally on the computer system by the name of user’s choice. Moreover, the software has impersonation option for admin to transfer the number of user accounts at a time. It also provides simple and user-friendly interfaces that even a novice user can use it without taking any expert help.