With the Office 365 Exchange Online migration, all users now have an expanded mailbox and are no longer subject to the original storage quota of 500 MB.
However, it may still be occasionally necessary to manually archive or backup mail in Outlook.
1. Open Outlook 2016
2. Click the File menu
3. On the Account Information screen which opens, click Open & Export
4. Select Import/Export from the options
5. On the Import and Export Wizard window, select the option to, Export to a file, then select, Next.
6. On the Export to a File window, select Outlook Data File (.pst)
7. The next window allows you to select what folder(s) should be exported. For your entire mailbox, including Calendar, Contacts and Notes, select your email address at the top of the list.
- Ensure the option, Include Subfolders, is selected.
8. Saving the file: Click the Browse button to specify where the export file (backup.pst) will be saved. It is recommended that this file be saved somewhere you can easily locate it, such as the Desktop or Documents folder. The default location is in the Outlook Files folder in the Documents folder. For most computers, this location is, c:\users\[username]\documents\outlook files\
9. After setting the save location, click Finish.
10. Optional: add a password to the file to encrypt it. If you forget this password, please note it is not possible to retrieve. Leave the fields blank if no password is required:
11. Upon clicking OK, Outlook will export your mailbox. It may take some time for the process to complete (the average mailbox of 200 MB will take 3-5 minutes to export; large mailboxes may take even longer, usually between 10-20 minutes, depending on size). Once finished, save the file to an encrypted external thumb drive to take with you.
Personal storage files (.PST) are Microsoft Outlook files and should be opened by Outlook to view and edit contents. Some mail applications will import mail from these files if you do not have Outlook available. Please check your email application to ensure it supports PST files.
In order to access your exported email, return to the main screen in Outlook.
- Click the File menu, select Open & Export again, then select, Open Outlook Data File.
- In the Open Outlook Data File explorer window, navigate to your exported file, select it and click, OK.
- The file will display in your folder list. Expand that to access the backup of your email.
Note: You may want to re-run the archive process if new email arrives which you would like to backup after the initial archiving has completed.