Creating Exchange backup jobs

This article describes how to configure an Exchange backup job to create a local backup of your Office 365 or on-premises Exchange mailboxes and public folders.

To find out how to back up your other SharePoint content, please go to the article on creating SharePoint backup jobs.

There are two ways to open the wizard that will guide you through the backup job configuration:

• on the Dashboard tab, click the Create a new Exchange backup job link on the How to start card, or
• go to the Jobs tab and click New > Backup > Exchange (Fig. 1.).

Fig. 1. Creating a new Exchange backup job.

Keep in mind that the How to start card is only available if you haven’t configured any backup jobs yet. In either case, the New Exchange backup job wizard will appear (Fig. 2.). It will guide you through the following steps of creating a backup job:

• Job name, where you define the name of your backup job.
• Job continuity, where you choose to run the backup job continuously or only once.
• Activity periods, where you can configure the backup job to start and stop automatically.
• Server connection, where you set up or select a connection to your Exchange server (Online or on-premises).
• Mailboxes, where you select which mailboxes to include in (or exclude from) the backup job.
• Site mailboxes, where you select which SharePoint mailboxes to include in (or exclude from) the backup job.
• Public Folders, where you choose which public folders to include in (or exclude from) the backup job.
• Target storage, where you select or create a storage that is used to keep your backed up data.
• Time filter, where you choose which items will be backed up depending on their age.
• Folder filter, where you decide which special folders to exclude from the backup process.
• Job summary, where you can review your backup job settings.

Fig. 2. The Exchange backup job wizard.

Job name

In this step (see Fig. 2. above), enter a unique name of your backup job. You will not be able to finish the wizard if the entered name has already been used.

Job continuity

Here (Fig. 3.) you can decide if a job should run in multiple cycles (continuous backup) or in a single cycle (one-time backup) during its activity periods.

Fig. 3. Selecting the type of backup.

Select the first option, Continuous backup, if you want to back up your Exchange data infinitely, in cycles. The first cycle backs up all your data, while each subsequent cycle is an incremental backup, meaning that only changes in your data, including new items, are backed up. The Idle time between cycles functionality allows you also to specify how much time needs to pass before the next cycle can start.

If you select the One-time backup option, the backup job will run only once (one cycle). However, once finished, you can restart such backup job manually in order to perform an incremental backup.

Learn more about the backup model used in CodeTwo Backup.

Activity periods

This feature allows you to specify the time ranges during which the program will automatically start and stop your backup job. To enable it, select the Enable activity periods checkbox (Fig. 4.).

Fig. 4. Enabling the activity periods feature.

You can now schedule your backups on a daily, weekly, monthly or custom basis, or define the end date for the backup job (Fig. 5.). 

Fig. 5. Configuring activity periods for the backup job.

Learn more about the activity periods feature.

Server connection

This is where you select the Exchange server that you wish to backup data from. Pick your Exchange connection from the drop-down menu (Fig. 6.) or configure a new connection.

Fig. 6. Selecting Exchange server you want to back up.

To configure a new Exchange connection instead, click Manage > New (Fig. 7.). A new window will open, allowing you to connect to the on-prem Exchange server or Exchange Online (Office 365).

Fig. 7. Creating a new Exchange connection.

Learn more on how to create a new connection to Exchange.

Mailboxes

CodeTwo Backup allows you to back up all mailboxes existing within your server or only the selected ones.

Backing up selected mailboxes

First, select one of the available options:

1. Back up mailboxes from the list below
2. Back up all mailboxes (including the newly created ones) except the ones from the list below

and click Add. The Select mailboxes window will open. Depending on which option you have chosen previously, select the mailboxes that you (a) want to back up (Fig. 8.) or (b) exclude from the backup. 

Fig. 8. Selecting mailboxes to be included in the backup job.

Backing up all mailboxes

To back up all mailboxes from your Exchange server, simply select the Back up all mailboxes (including the newly created ones) except the ones from the list below and don't add any mailboxes to the list (Fig. 9.).

Fig. 9. Backing up all mailboxes.

Site mailboxes

Select which SharePoint site mailboxes you want to back up. Just like in the case of regular mailboxes, there are two options available:

1. Back up site mailboxes from the list below
2. Back up all site mailboxes (including the newly created ones) except the ones from the list below

This step is very similar to the previous step of the Exchange backup job wizard, so for more information on how to select specific site mailboxes refer to the Mailboxes section above.

Public Folders

In this step, you can decide which Exchange public folders to back up. Click Add to open the Select Public Folders window. Next, select the checkbox next to the public folders you want to back up (Fig. 10.).

Fig. 10. Selecting public folders to be included in the backup job.

If any of these folders have subfolders and you want to include or exclude them from the backup, use the Back up subfolders checkbox (Fig. 10. above). Keep in mind that if you leave this checkbox selected, any future subfolders created in this public folder will be also backed up in subsequent backup cycles.

Target storage

A storage is where your backed-up data is kept. In this step, you can either select an existing storage from the drop-down menu (Fig. 11.) or click New to create a new storage.

Fig. 11. Selecting an existing storage.

Learn more on how to create a new storage in CodeTwo Backup. 

Time filter

In the Time filter step (Fig. 12.) you define which items from the source mailboxes will be backed up depending on their age.

Fig. 12. Setting up a time filter.

You can configure the program to back up:

• all items regardless of their age – when a backup job processes mailboxes, all items will be backed up, no matter if they were modified or not.
• only items older than [period of time] – the program will examine source mailboxes and back up only those items that were created or modified before a specified period of time.
• only items not older than [period of time] – the program will back up only those items that created or modified within a specified period of time.

There is also an option to override the time filter for contact items, allowing you to back up all contacts, no matter when they were created or modified.

Folder filter

Here you can define a filter that excludes special folders, such as RSS Subscriptions or Drafts, in source mailboxes from the backup process (Fig. 13.). To do so, select the checkbox next to the folder type you want to exclude. 

Fig. 13. Excluding special folders from the backup job.

Job summary

Here you can verify if you have configured the backup job according to your requirements (Fig. 14.).

Fig. 14. The summary of the backup job. 

In case you want to make any changes, click the name of any of the previous steps of the wizard and adjust your settings accordingly. If everything is correct, click Finish.

If you did not specify the job's activity periods, you need to start the job manually. However, as soon as you finish the wizard, a pop-up window will appear, allowing you to start the backup job immediately (Fig. 15.). Click Yes to do so.

Fig. 15. A pop-up asking to start the backup job automatically.

Otherwise, use the Start button on the Jobs tab to start the selected job.

See also

Monitoring jobs – find out how to monitor and manage existing jobs.