How to Backup Outlook Emails in Microsoft 365

This is 2025; backups are not optional. While many things have changed over the past few years, the need for reliable and consistent backups is now more critical than ever. Data protection is under a microscope, and your data-protection responsibilities are under the spotlight.

Microsoft’s new Outlook experience provides a more functional, crispier, and robust user interface, but it doesn’t protect you from accidental deletions, ransomware, or insider threats. Every power user and security professional needs a reliable way to back up Outlook emails.

In this guide, we’ll explore how to protect your Microsoft 365  data using built-in tools as well as automated third-party solutions. Both methods have their pros and cons, and we’ll go through their tradeoffs together. 

Let’s start with Microsoft’s built-in tools.

How to Backup Outlook Emails With Native Tools

In case you don’t need to back up a vast amount of data regularly, Microsoft 365 includes a few built-in tools you can use. These options are free and convenient, but they have their limitations since they are not designed initially as backup tools.  

Keep in mind that native Outlook tools don’t isolate your data from the risk of external attacks or accidental deletions. Viruses can infect your account, jeopardizing your backed-up emails in Outlook. If your account or device is compromised, it could still destroy your messages, including any copies you’ve made.

If you’re cautious and disciplined, these tools can protect you if you’re in a pinch. Below are three ways to manually back up Outlook emails using Microsoft’s built-in features.

Method 1: Email Forwarding

Heads up: While email forwarding is one of the easiest methods we’ll discuss, there are a few gotchas. Setting email forwarding for users from the admin center is only available for Exchange administrators. Once email forwarding is set up, only new emails received will be forwarded.

Email forwarding is one of the simplest methods to back up your emails. It works by automatically sending your incoming messages to another mailbox that acts as a “mirror”. If your main account is ever deactivated, messages are deleted, or you find yourself locked out of it, those forwarded copies can be retrieved.

You can also keep your main account “clean” with lots of free space while copying everything to the spare one. Perhaps email forwarding is the easiest way to preserve non-critical data or as temporary redundancy.

Here’s how to set up email forwarding in Microsoft 365.

Web Version

1. Go to the Exchange admin center.
2. Click on Users and then on the Active Users options.
   
3. Click on the User you’d like to set up email forwarding for.
4. Click on the ‘Mail’ tab and then on Manage email forwarding.
   
5. Once the email forwarding panel comes up, select forward all emails sent to this mailbox, enter the email address that you’d like to use as backup, and click on ‘Save Changes’.
   
6. Once changes are saved, you’ll see that email forwarding has been applied to the account on the user’s panel.
   

Now all your emails are backed up to the given address. But be aware, that if someone will hack your Microsoft account and delete messages, they can do the same with your spare account.

How to Back Up Microsoft Outlook Desktop Version

If you’re using the new Outlook app for Windows, you can create a rule to forward incoming messages automatically. This option doesn’t require you to be an administrator in the organization and can be done quickly.

If you’re using the new Outlook app for Windows, you can create a rule to forward incoming messages automatically. This option doesn’t require you to be an administrator in the organization and can be done quickly.

You need to follow the next steps:

1. Open Outlook.
2. Go to File > Account Info.
3. From the left menu, click on Mail and then Rules, and Add new rule.
   
4. From the following form, you’ll be prompted to name your rule, add a condition that will apply to all messages, and set an action and an email address that will receive your incoming emails.
   
5. Finally, after clicking on Save, you’ll see the rule you just created.
   

That’s it! The rule is set.

As we covered earlier, each of these methods has its own set of trade-offs. Forwarding emails from Outlook (or from the Exchange Admin Center) has some drawbacks:

1. Forwarding only affects new incoming messages.
2. Space is finite. Sure, your main account will be lighter, but you’re still filling up the secondary account.
3. Both accounts remain exposed to the same threats.
4. No centralized or automated restore point. You have to recover messages from the backup account manually.

Method 2: Export/Import Wizard (.pst files)

Outlook provides the ability to manually create a local copy of your Outlook mailbox as a .pst file. This feature has similarities with the Google Takeout function for the G Suite; you can export your data and store it on your local computer, an external drive, or your choice of cloud provider. 

Although you can restore this file at any time, this approach is, for most intents and purposes, manual and better suited for one-time backups or migrations. Newer versions of Outlook will ask if you’d like to set up a recurring export now. 

This function’s main advantage is that it doesn’t require a complicated deployment — a good choice for one-off operations.

To export any folder of your Outlook, follow these steps:

1. Open Outlook.
2. Click on File > Open & Export > Export.
3. You’ll be prompted to select which accounts you’d like to back up and click on Get Started.
   
4. You’ll then see a confirmation of the different folders in the account selected, and upon clicking Next, you’ll be prompted for a series of options.
   
5. Clicking Next, you’ll be prompted to select a file name and, if you choose to, select a recurring export. Right before you’re on your way, it’ll prompt you for a password to protect the export. You can leave these fields empty, but it’s not recommended. A strong password is always better to restrict unintended access to your backups.
   
6. Upon clicking Schedule export, you’ll return to the Settings panel, and you’ll see how the process is going.
   

If you requested a recurring event, you’ll see an indication of the process.

As always with manual methods, there are some tradeoffs:

• You must export mail manually or wait for the subsequent recurrence to catch up. Incoming messages in between may not be backed up and are vulnerable to deletion and ill intent. 
• Local storage risk: .pst files stored locally can be lost to device failure and are exposed to the limits of your local storage on the device.,
• This process can be time-consuming, especially for large organizations. Setting up rules to manage multiple mailboxes or frequently exporting data across hundreds of users with different needs and storage demands would be impractical without automation. 

Method 3: Auto-Archive

Auto Archive is a tool in Outlook (classic only) that is used to move older messages to a separate local file after a set period of time. It’s primarily meant for management of the mailbox, but some users do treat it as a simple way to retain older messages offline. 

Heads up! This is not a real backup, but it does help you find and recover older messages when space or retention limits apply.

Unlike exporting, Autho Archive moves messages instead of maintaining active copies of them. Archived emails are stored in a .pst file on your local device and are removed from the original mailbox.

Auto Archiving is disabled by default, so you’ll need to turn it on manually. 

If you want to set up Auto Archiving, you’ll need to enable the old User Interface; it’s not available for the newer versions of Outlook for Windows. Follow the next steps: 

1. Open Outlook (classic) or switch from the new User Interface.
2. Go to File > Options.
3. Select Advanced and AutoArchive Settings…”
   
4. The AutoArchive window will display several settings that you’ll need to configure based on your specific needs. Enabling the ‘Run AutoArchive every… ‘ will enable the rest of the options below. He default AutoArchive period is 14 days.
   
5. ‘Clean out items older than…’ sets the age threshold for emails to be archived.
6. ‘Move old items to’ lets you choose or browse the location for the Archive file.
7. Clicking OK saves your AutoArchive settings.

That’s it! Outlook will now automatically move older emails into your Archive file according to the settings configured above. Since not everything is perfect, there are a few drawbacks:

1. Local storage risk. Archive files are saved on your local drive, leaving them vulnerable to hardware failure or ransomware. This limitation can be curbed by configuring the local file to back up to your favorite cloud provider, but that’s additional overhead you’ll need to maintain. 
2. Moves instead of copies. Archiving doesn’t copy your files; it transfers them. When the messages are in the Archive file, they disappear from your mailbox.
3. Not supported in newer versions of Outlook: AutoArchive is unavailable in the new Outlook for Windows interface. The classic version of Outlook will begin to be phased out in April of 2026, and while its support will extend through 2029, you may need to look for alternatives. 

Because of these limitations, AutoArchive should be viewed as an email management feature and not a backup solution. 

As you can see, Microsoft’s built-in tools are limited.

They work well as backup for individuals with small mailboxes or for quick, temporary backups.

In all other cases, use specialized backup services with cybersecurity features. These services provide continuous protection, centralized management, and recovery from ransomware or user errors. The appropriate solution has to be a dedicated backup platform that integrates directly with Microsoft 365.

How to Backup a Microsoft 365 Mailbox in a Few Clicks

The easiest and fastest way to perform a complete Microsoft 3655 mailbox backup is to use a dedicated cloud-to-cloud backup software. Forget about exporting files or setting up and maintaining forwarding rules; these tools automatically protect your Microsoft 365 data in a few clicks. 

In this example, we’ll use SpinOne, a modern successor to SpinBackup.

SpinOne automates the backup, restore, ransomware recovery, and versioning processes for Microsoft 365 services, including Outlook, OneDrive, and SharePoint. 

For an example of how to backup Outlook using a third-party backup, we used our service SpinOne. This tool provides backup and recovery automation, versioning, regularity, and other features native methods don’t include. They will help you to automate the backup process. We’ll make a reservation right away – this way you can back up not only your Outlook but data of all Microsoft 365 services.

To do all the steps with SpinOne, you can backup Outlook for free, using our demo for 15 days, no strings attached. 

After you do that, all the existing data on your Microsoft 365 will be synced with SpinOne the next morning. The same happens with the data of other users attached to your account. But before that, you need to customize which data will be backed up. The backup process itself is automated.

How to backup Outlook 365 emails with SpinOne:

1. Go to the Admin Panel.
2. Go to Menu in the top left corner. Then press Settings.
   
3. Choose services that need to be backed up.
4. Choose the frequency of the backup. You have two options: 1x/day and 3x/day.

All backed-up data will be seen on the dashboard. Also, you can see the backed-up data of other users by simply clicking on the Users in the Menu. From this panel, you can customize which data will be automatically backed up for particular users.

If you need to manually backup emails, do the following:

1. Go to Dashboard and press Users on the left side. Pick the user whose emails you want to backup. Click on the Exchange Online.
   
2. Choose the emails you want to backup. Then press Backup.
   

Done! All your Outlook messages are copied. This way, you can backup Contacts, OneDrive files, and SharePoint as well.

If you suddenly need to restore some files, you can do it by clicking the Restore button, which is always near the Backup button. You can also choose to restore only some particular messages by using a filter.

This way, the customization of the backup of everything (not only the emails) will take about 2 minutes. Your backed-up data is stored on AWS, GCP, Azure, or your custom storage location. An ability to choose a backup location is a way to diversify risks.

Have more questions about our Microsoft 365 email backup? Schedule a demo and 30 minutes with our engineer in a personalized environment will answer all your questions. – Try SpinOne for free

Conclusion

Backing up Microsoft 365 emails isn’t about convenience; whether you rely on Microsoft’s own native tools or an automated platform like SpinOne, the goal is the same: to protect your communication and historical records from data loss, outages, and modern ransomware attacks. Researchers have found that in 2025, email threats will remain one of the largest attack vectors, and organizations are susceptible to ransomware and account takeover incidents. Taking a few minutes to establish a reliable backup system today can save days of downtime and countless lost messages tomorrow.

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