Export Microsoft 365 user data to a PST or ZIP file

Written By Tami Sutcliffe (Super Administrator)

Updated at November 7th, 2025

Meet the challenges of data restoration   

Restoring data to a protected system often presents unique challenges, such as the target system’s ability to receive large volumes of data and the throttling restrictions for incoming requests. 

New feature: Export Microsoft 365 user data to a file 

To address these challenges, we’ve added a new feature: 

  • you can export Microsoft 365 user mailbox data from x360Cloud to a Personal Storage Table (PST) file, a widely accepted format for Microsoft Outlook. 
  • you can export Microsoft 365 user OneDrive data from x360Cloud to an archive (ZIP) file. 

Based on our partner feedback, this feature is a game-changer for on-premises archiving and data portability.

NOTE: This feature supports Microsoft data - Mail, Calendar, Contacts and OneDrive. Support for Microsoft 365 Archive mailboxes and Google Workspace data is planned for future updates.

 What are the benefits of data export?

  • Fast and efficient exports: Quickly retrieve data to save time during urgent situations.
  • Simplified offboarding: Easily create offline copies of mailboxes or OneDrive accounts for smooth and efficient employee offboarding.
  • Regulatory compliance and audits: Meet regulatory requirements and provide readable mailbox copies for legal or internal investigations.
  • Greater flexibility: Export ZIP or PST files to any desired location, offering flexibility in data storage and restoration.
  • Detailed data review: Preview and analyze export contents to identify specific items from backed-up mailboxes before restoration.
How to export user data


1. In the Reseller Dashboard, open the Organizations page and click the name of the organization you want to manage.

 2. Using the left hand navigation menu, click Accounts and navigate to the list of users on the Microsoft 365 Users Accounts page.

3. Select the user whose mailbox data you want to export by clicking that User Name.

The “User details” sidebar will open on the right of the window.

Click the Export user data button to begin the exportation process.

 4. An Export User window will open.   

Check which services data needs to be exported. Optionally, specify "Backup date" to get data exported as it existed and was captured at (or before) the specified point in time. 

Click the Export button to confirm the operation.


The system will notify you after a successful export initiation.

NOTE: Please be aware that exporting can take a significant amount of time, depending on the amount of data backed up for the exported user account. 

How to monitor export status 

To check the export status, navigate to the organization’s Dashboard and open the Exports tab in the Recent Activity Report section. If you selected both Exchange and OneDrive services for exporting, you will be able to see two Export tasks launched by the system in the Export tab:

  1. Export for Mail/Calendar/Contact data to a PST file. 
  2. Export for OneDrive data to a ZIP file.

 The list of activities contains all exports with the following key details:

  • Status will indicate the current state of the export:
    • In Progress: The export is ongoing.
    • Complete: The export procedure has finished, and the resulting file is ready for download. The "Export Progress" column shows completion rates.
    • **Partial: The export could not be completed for a part of the selected items. But the other part is available for download. See more details in the "Notes on a partial export" section below.
    • Failed: The export failed, and the file is unavailable. In this case, please contact the Support team.

Other details on this report include:

  • Initiated: Date and time the export was started.
  • Service: Indicates which Microsoft 365 service data was exported.
  • Initiated by: Email address of the user who initiated the export.
  • Export ID: Contains the email address of the user whose data is exported.
  • Progress: Displays the number of objects successfully exported, e.g., “80% of 100 objects” indicates 80 objects were exported successfully.

**Notes on a Partial export:

  • The Partial export status indicates that the system could not export some objects, but the rest were successfully exported and are now available in the resulting PST or ZIP file.
  • The Progress column will indicate the percentage of successfully exported items. 

 

To review which objects were successfully exported and which were not:

  • Click the Partial status link to open the export detail dialog
  • Download the  “Contents” CSV file. 
  • Review the "Contents" file, which lists all the objects and their export statuses. 

Important: Currently, there is no option to retry exporting a set of failed objects in one click, and the export feature is not available for search results. If problematic objects could not be exported, please contact our Support team.


How to view objects selected for export

Each completed export includes a “Contents” CSV file, which lists the selected objects and their status.

The “Contents” file, available for download in the “Export Detail” dialog, contains:

  • Type: type of an object (email, event or contact)
  • Title: subject of the email.
  • Folder Path: object location in the folder structure.
  • Calendar: the calendar the event is located in
  • Export Status: indicates whether the object was successfully exported (“Success”) or failed (“Failure”).


 How to download the exported data

To download the exported file, click the Download icon in the Actions column of the Exports table.

Additional export details, including archive file size and export completion time, can be found in the Export Detail dialog. To access this, click the Complete link in the Status column.

Note: For quicker downloads, the PST file is archived (zipped). You will need to unpack the zipped archive to access the PST file for further importing into a target system. With large data volumes, the zipped archive will contain several PST files – up to 50 GB each. 

For example: 

These PST files can be imported in a random order.

Retention policy for exported data

For each export in x360Cloud, a retention policy is applied.

Then, an expiration date and time is shown in the new Expiration column of the Export list: 

Example:

Important notes:

  • Exported data (along with the Contents files) are kept in the system and are available for download for 14 days from the date the export is initiated.
  • Three days before the retention period is about to expire, the expiration timestamp is highlighted with red:

 After the retention period is over, the Download icon\link is no longer available, and system shows a Download expired label.

Data exports are reflected in the Audit Log

As a reseller, you can view a list of historical user and system activities by reviewing the respective tabs under the reseller-level or organization-level Audit Log page.

The following export-related system activity events can be tracked:

  1. Export was initiated
  2. Export completed
  3. Export completed partially
  4. Export failed

For each of these export-related system activity events, the email address (of the user account whose data was exported) is referenced in the “Container” field. 

Frequently-asked questions

What is supported? 
This feature currently supports Microsoft 365 Mail, Calendar, Contact and OneDrive data.

Will additional components be supported later?
Support for Microsoft 365 Archive and Google Workspace data is planned for future updates

Will this have additional costs?
No, the export feature is included with your x360Cloud license

Does PST export include archive mailboxes as well?
No

What type of x360Cloud app user can do PST exports?
Any type of user (“reseller” and “organization admin”)  can use the feature and do exports in x360Cloud.  .



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