EXPORTING MS EXCHANGE EMAILS to another platform

[Diana]

Hello,
I will soon be leaving my job and wanted to make sure I take all my emails with me. I use my own personal laptop for everything. So on my OUTLOOK 2013, I have my gmail and work email (Exchange/Office 365) that come through.

I tried exporting a folder on MS Exchange to test things and was able to import the backup, however not all the emails were downloaded (as some stem back to 2011)....i.e. so on my outlook, i need to click on a section right under that folder that says 'There are more items in this folder on the server, Click here to view more on Microsoft Exchange). Those were the items that were not getting imported.

Instead of using this way, i am sure there is a quicker way just to use a whole backup instead of exporting/importing each folder e.g. the datafile backup i have (.ost). However, Outlook 2013 wont allow me to import .ost file. The idea is just to have everything as i have it now for future reference i.e. just check emails/addresses etc. It is 6 years of work. Also should i use a different application instead of outlook 2013 to import into? I dont mind, just as long as i take my hard work with me to view for future reference.

Thank you
Diana

 

[Diane Poremsky]

go into file, account settings and double click on the exchange account - is the sync slider set to the far right, to All? It sounds like it is not syncing the full mailbox.

After it is set to All, wait a few hours then export the entire mailbox to a pst file.

 

[Diana]

Thank you so much Diane. I have set it to ALL and will now wait. Just a couple of more questions
1) Once my last day is up and my account is deactivated will i lose that export thats imported into my OUTLOOK.
2) Is there another application i can use instead of OUTLOOK to import this into?

 

[Diane Poremsky]

1. You won't lose anything exported to a pst file - if you are using a company computer, you'll need to take a copy of the pst file with you.

2. Calendar & contacts are easy to move as you can export to a csv. You'd need a conversion program to handle mail - such as address magic - Address Magic Plus.

 

[Diane Poremsky]

BTW, when you account is deactivated, it will still open in outlook but won't connect to the server. So you'll have the old mail in the original mailbox until you delete the account from outlook. This won't make much diff if it's a work computer but if it's your own computer, you can read the mail until you delete the account from your profile.

 

[Diana]

Thank you very much. That has been very helpful for me.

 

[AndrewWeb]

Hi all,
Hopefully not too late to jump on this bandwagon. I've got Outlook 2013 linked to a work exchange server, with plenty of group policies in place. Cached exchange mode is in effect, set to 3 months, and I cannot change this value (rather, I change it, but it says I must restart to apply the changes, and it resets when I restart Outlook. I also cannot change the value in the registry - I don't have admin privileges.)

I, too, would like to create a backup of my email.

I can export a .pst file of a given folder, but it just gives me the last 3 months' of email. In the folder view, if I click on "Click here to view more items on Microsoft Exchange", I can *see* all the messages, but when I try to export this folder, I get the message that an "unknown error" (no additional number or code) occurred, and the exported pst file is blank.

So, if I cannot download all messages to my machine (which I think is the case), is there a way to export a folder (or folders) but tell outlook to go get the messages from the server to include in the export?

Many thanks!

 

[Diane Poremsky]

export won't work if you can sync it all down - try using search to find everything (search for a or a space) and move or copy to a pst. it will definitely be slower....

if you could create a new profile in online mode that would work too... it all depends if policy allows it.

 

[AndrewWeb]

Thanks for the ideas! Without taking too much of the group's / your time:

I'm assuming I need to create a search folder to export? (I say this based on trial-and-error and some googling).

I can create a search folder, but I seem to be limited to my local, i.e., <3 month-old messages (whether I'm searching for single characters or, e.g., for a category that exists in mail older than 3 months). When I do a manual search (e.g., for mail received last year), I get no or limited results, but can click on "Find more on the server". Is there a way to force a search folder to pull messages from the server?

Gratefully,

 

[AndrewWeb]

I'd still love to know if there's a way to force search folders to pull from the server (?); however, for others trying to get local copies of mail:

A roundabout approach to get all mail from a cached exchange model setup is the following (which is probably exactly what Diane was referring to in her respons!

1. Create an empty pst folder (e.g., export an existing, small folder as a pst), and then open this pst (so it shows up in your list of folders, but is separate from the server account), and add a folder into which you'll copy.
2. Do a manual search for the terms of interest (or just look in a folder and click on "Click here to view more items on Microsoft Exchange") in order to put the full list of message headers into the view.
3. Copy (e.g., ctrl-drag) the *full* list of messages into the new folder in the target folder in the empty pst. As Diane said, it is slow... but you do get a pst with all messages out of the bargain.

Cheers

 

[Diane Poremsky]

Search folders are limited to local store, you need to use instant search, which can include messages on the server. Definitely not a fast solution, but if you need a backup, it's the only option. Generally speaking, you shouldn't need to make backups - i'm actually surprised they don't have pst files blocked.