Office 365 - Configuring Selections
Magnus Box lets you control exactly which parts of an Office 365 account are protected. Once an Office 365 Protected Item has been added and authenticated, you choose which mailboxes and sites are included in the backup job.
Important change in Magnus Box 26.10.0: OneDrive is only backed up if you select it. Before 26.10.0, a full backup could capture a user's personal OneDrive even when the OneDrive service wasn't selected, then drop it again from later incremental backups. Full and incremental backups now both follow your OneDrive selection. If you were relying on that OneDrive data, it won't be in new backups, and the job log shows a warning whenever content is skipped for this reason. Check each Microsoft Office 365 Protected Item and turn on OneDrive for the users who need it.
Configuring selections
Use the pencil (edit) button on the Protected Item in the desktop app to open the selection dialog. From here you decide which mailboxes and sites are backed up.
Mailboxes and sites are configured separately. Use the dropdown arrow beside the plus (add) button to switch between making a mailbox selection and making a site selection.
Choosing what to back up
For both mailboxes and sites, you can choose one of three scopes:
- Back up all mailboxes/sites. Everything in the account is protected, and any new accounts added later are picked up automatically.
- Back up only the selected mailboxes/sites. Only the items you pick are protected.
- Back up all mailboxes/sites except for the selected ones. Everything is protected except the items you exclude, and new accounts added later are still picked up automatically.
Include and exclude rules (Magnus Box 26.10.0 or later)
In 26.10.0 the account selection is an ordered list of include and exclude rules, in both the Magnus Box Application and the Web Portal. You can:
- Add an All accounts rule so users added to the organization later are protected automatically.
- Add exclude rules for specific users, groups, teams or sites, for example to back up everyone except a few service accounts.
Rules need Magnus Box 26.8.1 or later on the device that runs the backup. Update older devices before you switch them to rules.
If you need coverage for users, groups, or sites that are created in the future without revisiting the selection, use one of the "all" scopes rather than picking individual items.
Finding users, groups, and sites
The first dialog shows your current selection. Click the plus (add) button to open a second dialog that lists the users and sites available from your Office 365 account. Use the Search field in the second dialog to quickly filter for a known user or site.
When you are selecting users, the dialog also lists your Microsoft Entra ID groups alongside individual accounts. If you select a group, Magnus Box backs up the mailboxes of all user accounts that belong to that group. Outlook groups are not supported, and their messages cannot be backed up.
Mailbox types
Two categories of mailbox are available for selection:
- Active Users. The user accounts as shown in the Office 365 Admin Center.
- Shared Mailboxes. A shared mailbox is counted as a full separate mailbox for billing purposes, regardless of how many other accounts have access to it.
Sites, OneDrive, and Teams
On the site side of the selection, you can protect SharePoint Online sites and OneDrive for Business. OneDrive files can be restored as regular files and folders, under the Documents subdirectory of the associated SharePoint site.
Microsoft Teams files are also supported and appear under Documents in the associated SharePoint site. Teams Chat, Calendar, Meetings, and Call data are not backed up.
Configuring selections remotely
The Protected Item selection can also be configured from the Magnus Box Web Portal, so you do not need to be at the desktop app to change what is backed up.