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Overview of the mailbox import and export APIs in Microsoft Graph (preview)

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The mailbox import and export APIs in Microsoft Graph let your application import and export contents from Exchange Online mailboxes. Contents within a mailbox can be accessed as a set of folders and items in a uniform format without having to understand the metadata and structure of each item type separately. These items can be exported in FastTransfer stream format in full fidelity. Full-fidelity exports ensure that when you import an item back, Exchange recreates the item without any loss of information.

These APIs support access to data in users' primary and in-place archive mailboxes on Exchange Online. Items can be imported to the same mailbox or a different one.

Why integrate with the mailbox import and export APIs?

Backup and restore mailbox items in full fidelity

Exchange is a gold mine of important information: email, contacts, tasks, and calendars are core to the functions of an organization. Sometimes users and administrators encounter a need to restore an item or a set of items in a mailbox, and also make changes to the folder hierarchy of a mailbox. Many independent software vendors (ISVs) address this scenario by performing item-level backups of mailbox content, and restoring the content back into mailboxes when necessary. When using APIs that don't support the FastTransfer stream format, restoring mailbox content can be a challenge.

The following are some of the scenarios that the mailbox import and export APIs enable:

Move items from one mailbox to another

You can use the mailbox import and export APIs to move items between mailboxes, which is common for many workflows. Exchange developers can use these APIs to automate the process.

API reference

Looking for the API reference for this service, see Mailbox import and export APIs in Microsoft Graph beta.

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