{"id":20271,"date":"2026-08-24T07:54:52","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T07:54:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/?p=20271"},"modified":"2026-08-24T08:10:28","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T08:10:28","slug":"microsoft-switching-off-ews-api","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/microsoft-switching-off-ews-api","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft is switching off the EWS API. Here&#8217;s how we&#8217;re moving forward, and what you need to do."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>BackupAssist 365 has been happily using the Microsoft EWS API for many years, but how we back up email will soon change because Microsoft is retiring the EWS API.<\/p>\n<p>The good news is that over the last 6 months, we&#8217;ve been working on a new design and architecture for mailbox backups that will last the next decade and beyond. The result is faster, more secure backups, and more precise restores.<\/p>\n<p>The bad news is there&#8217;s a little administration work needed to keep the backups running as Microsoft switches off their EWS API.<\/p>\n<p>In this post, I&#8217;ll cover:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Some recommended steps to keep BackupAssist v1 running for another 8 months. (It takes under 5 minutes.)<\/li>\n<li>A sneak peek at BackupAssist 365 v2, which we are preparing for beta testing very shortly.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Part 1 &#8211; keeping BackupAssist v1 running<\/h2>\n<p>A 5 minute procedure will keep BackupAssist v1 running. Here are the key dates:<\/p>\n<table>\n<thead>\n<tr>\n<th>Date<\/th>\n<th>What happens<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>Prior to 31 August 2026<\/td>\n<td>Admins who still require EWS can extend its availability using a PowerShell command (explained later)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>1 October 2026<\/td>\n<td>Microsoft starts disabling Exchange Web Services (EWS) by default across Exchange Online, unless the extension was set up<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>1 April 2027<\/td>\n<td>EWS is fully and permanently shut down<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/techcommunity.microsoft.com\/blog\/exchange\/exchange-online-ews-your-time-is-almost-up\/4492361\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Microsoft&#8217;s own notice<\/a> has the full timeline and explanation.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"what-you-should-do\">What you should do by 31 August 2026<\/h3>\n<p><strong>We recommend that you extend EWS, just to avoid potential backup downtime.<\/strong> This is an IT admin task, so you&#8217;ll need Exchange admin permissions and the Exchange Online PowerShell module installed.<\/p>\n<pre><code># One-time setup, if you don't already have the module\nInstall-Module -Name ExchangeOnlineManagement\n\n# Connect to your tenant\nConnect-ExchangeOnline -UserPrincipalName admin@yourdomain.com\n\n# Check your current EWS status\nGet-OrganizationConfig | Format-List EwsEnabled\n\n# Enable EWS explicitly at the tenant level\nSet-OrganizationConfig -EwsEnabled $true\n\n# Check your EWS status got updated\nGet-OrganizationConfig | Format-List EwsEnabled\n\n<\/code><\/pre>\n<p>If you perform the task by 31 August 2026, you&#8217;re safe &#8211; backups will continue to run with no interruption.<\/p>\n<p><em>If you don&#8217;t make the 31 August 2026 deadline, don&#8217;t panic.<\/em> The situation will be recoverable, and we will release a simple tool to restore backup operations. We just can&#8217;t build the tool yet because we have to see Microsoft&#8217;s actions first. There may be one or two days of backup downtime if Microsoft switches off your EWS API and then we have to switch it back on.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Part 2 &#8211; How BackupAssist 365 v2 will improve your mailbox backups<\/h2>\n<p>There are two key technical changes in BackupAssist v2:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>API change: it uses the Microsoft Graph API in place of EWS<\/li>\n<li>Data format change: it uses a SQLite database instead of PST files to store data<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Although the net result of these changes has been extremely positive, initially we weren&#8217;t pleased to have to switch APIs and throw out a lot of existing code. We put in countless hours working around the <strong>many, many<\/strong> bugs in EWS. EWS is extremely fickle, with probably hundreds of edge cases from throttling to incorrect error messages.<\/p>\n<p>But it&#8217;s turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The change in API has prompted us to make significant upgrades to our mailbox backup engine.<\/p>\n<p>While we were designing around the new API, we realized that this was the ideal time to reconsider our overall backup architecture and look for improvements. Switching APIs is a big task, so given we had to rewrite our mailbox backup &#8220;engine&#8221; anyway, it&#8217;s the ideal time to upgrade everything else around it. And what we&#8217;ve come up with is even better in terms of:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Performance &#8211; significantly faster incremental backups via delta query<\/li>\n<li>Long term accessibility &#8211; from a Microsoft file format (PST) to the SQLite file format which is truly public domain<\/li>\n<li>Data security &#8211; from only password protecting a PST file to now fully encrypting all data at rest<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There&#8217;s one significant change I must highlight &#8211; we&#8217;ll no longer use PST files as our storage format.<\/p>\n<h3>Why we didn&#8217;t just point the old PST format at the new API<\/h3>\n<p>Graph API and EWS don&#8217;t map onto each other cleanly. Graph gives us fields EWS never had \u2014 Focused Inbox classification, Teams meeting links, direct webLinks back into Outlook. EWS gave us raw MAPI properties that Graph doesn&#8217;t expose the same way. Two APIs built a decade apart, describing the same mailbox differently.<\/p>\n<p>We could have forced the new fields into the PST file using custom data fields, but it wouldn&#8217;t have been wise or forward thinking. Microsoft has added so much functionality in recent years, we would expect more new fields over time &#8211; jamming them into the aging PST file format would be a compromise that gets worse over time.<\/p>\n<h3>What we built instead<\/h3>\n<p>Every mailbox now gets its own SQLite database \u2014 a single file per user, just as with PST files. But unlike database servers like Oracle or SQL Server, SQLite is extremely lightweight: no service to install, no DBA or licensing fees. And it&#8217;s even lighter than a PST &#8211; a blank PST is 265KB before it holds a single email; a SQLite file with the same schema in place is about 8KB.<\/p>\n<p>We also keep every field that the Graph API returns, including any new ones they add later, so we&#8217;re now futureproof. A Microsoft API change doesn&#8217;t mean waiting on a BackupAssist update to avoid losing data. Backups after the first are incremental, pulling only what&#8217;s changed. Mailboxes are properly encrypted with AES-256, not PST&#8217;s cosmetic password. And there&#8217;s no massive performance hit when PST files get large.<\/p>\n<h3>Is a SQLite database a step backward for data sovereignty?<\/h3>\n<p>When our senior engineer proposed using SQLite as the storage format, I was nervous that we might lose the accessibility advantages of PST files.<\/p>\n<p>But two things convinced me this was the right move.<\/p>\n<p>First: there&#8217;s no genuinely open standard sitting there waiting for this data. Formats like EML were designed in the 1980s, long before Focused Inbox or a Teams meeting link existed. Even Exchange itself has drifted from the RFCs it&#8217;s nominally built on. Someone has to define a structure for this data, and whoever does, you&#8217;re trusting them to keep it stable.<\/p>\n<p>Second: SQLite is open and public domain. Its developers have publicly committed to keeping the file format <a href=\"https:\/\/sqlite.org\/lts.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">backward-compatible through 2050<\/a>, and the US Library of Congress recommends it as a format for long-term digital preservation. That&#8217;s about as strong a vote of confidence as a file format gets from outside its own project.<\/p>\n<p>SQLite databases are self-describing. Open one with a free tool like <a href=\"https:\/\/sqlitebrowser.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">DB Browser for SQLite<\/a> and the schema is right there \u2014 no separate spec to track down, unlike PST&#8217;s dense format documentation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>And it&#8217;s AI friendly!<\/strong> If you&#8217;d rather ask plain-English questions of an old backup than write SQL, that same self-describing schema means an AI model can do that too. In fact, I will record a video demonstrating how easy it is to feed a mailbox backup into AI to do virtually any kind of search and retrieval you could ever want.<\/p>\n<h3>What this means for you<\/h3>\n<table>\n<thead>\n<tr>\n<th>Old: PST over EWS<\/th>\n<th>New: SQLite over Graph API<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>Missing newer Microsoft 365 fields<\/td>\n<td>Every field Microsoft returns, including future ones<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Differential backup &#8211; item header comparison every backup<\/td>\n<td>Incremental at API level \u2014 only fetches what&#8217;s changed<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Password that only looks like protection<\/td>\n<td>Real AES-256 encryption<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Performance degrades past ~50GB<\/td>\n<td>No practical size ceiling<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>No reliable tracking of moved or deleted items<\/td>\n<td>Move detection and full historical tracking<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<h3>The one drawback that we couldn&#8217;t overcome<\/h3>\n<p>There&#8217;s one drawback that we tried to address, but simply couldn&#8217;t. There&#8217;s unfortunately <strong>no migration path<\/strong> between the old and new data formats.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;ve got PST-based mailbox backups already on disk, you&#8217;ll need to set up a new backup job and re-download your mailboxes. We recommend you archive your existing backups somewhere safe, then let BackupAssist download each mailbox afresh under the new format. It&#8217;s a one-time hit but the benefits will be ongoing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>So when you&#8217;re ready to upgrade: archive your existing PST-based backups permanently, and then set up a mailbox backup.<\/strong> The initial download will, unfortunately, be slow. But thereafter, every backup after that is incremental again, and considerably faster than before.<\/p>\n<h2>Feedback<\/h2>\n<p>We know that a major change like this causes extra work and inconvenience &#8211; which is why we prefer not to make major changes at all!<\/p>\n<p>Do you have any concerns &#8211; say about the new data format? Is there a use-case we need to know about? Please contact our support email address with any feedback you have.<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime &#8211; happy backups.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BackupAssist 365 has been happily using the Microsoft EWS API for many years, but how we back up email will soon change because Microsoft is retiring the EWS API. The good news is that over the last 6 months, we&#8217;ve been working on a new design and architecture for mailbox backups that will last the &#8230; <a title=\"Microsoft is switching off the EWS API. Here&#8217;s how we&#8217;re moving forward, and what you need to do.\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/microsoft-switching-off-ews-api\">Read more <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Microsoft is switching off the EWS API. Here&#8217;s how we&#8217;re moving forward, and what you need to do.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20272,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[763],"tags":[274,708,66,804,32,598,855,857,859,808,856,311,858],"class_list":["post-20271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-backupassist-365","tag-backup-strategy","tag-backupassist-365","tag-cloud-backup","tag-cyber-resilience","tag-data-security","tag-data-sovereignty","tag-email-backup","tag-ews","tag-exchange-online","tag-microsoft-365","tag-microsoft-graph-api","tag-ransomware","tag-sqlite"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>BackupAssist 365 v2: From EWS to Microsoft Graph API<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"BackupAssist 365 v2 moves from Microsoft&#039;s EWS API to Graph API, bringing faster backups, AES-256 encryption and a future-ready SQLite format.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/microsoft-switching-off-ews-api\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"BackupAssist 365 v2: From EWS to Microsoft Graph API\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"BackupAssist 365 v2 moves from Microsoft&#039;s EWS API to Graph API, bringing faster backups, AES-256 encryption and a future-ready SQLite format.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/microsoft-switching-off-ews-api\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Cyber Resilience Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-08-24T07:54:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-08-24T08:10:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/Make-this-banner-lighter-and-brighter-with-a-cleaner-airier-enterprise-palette-while-preserving-the-legacy-to-cloud-migration-narrative-flowing-data-paths-and-generous-negative-space.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1376\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Linus Chang\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Linus Chang\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/microsoft-switching-off-ews-api#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/microsoft-switching-off-ews-api\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Linus Chang\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/523a9a01769da254de228dbd4b1328d3\"},\"headline\":\"Microsoft is switching off the EWS API. Here&#8217;s how we&#8217;re moving forward, and what you need to do.\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-08-24T07:54:52+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-08-24T08:10:28+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/microsoft-switching-off-ews-api\"},\"wordCount\":1375,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/microsoft-switching-off-ews-api#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/Make-this-banner-lighter-and-brighter-with-a-cleaner-airier-enterprise-palette-while-preserving-the-legacy-to-cloud-migration-narrative-flowing-data-paths-and-generous-negative-space.png\",\"keywords\":[\"backup strategy\",\"backupassist 365\",\"cloud backup\",\"Cyber Resilience\",\"Data Security\",\"Data Sovereignty\",\"email backup\",\"EWS\",\"Exchange Online\",\"Microsoft 365\",\"Microsoft Graph API\",\"ransomware\",\"SQLite\"],\"articleSection\":[\"BackupAssist 365\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/microsoft-switching-off-ews-api#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/microsoft-switching-off-ews-api\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/microsoft-switching-off-ews-api\",\"name\":\"BackupAssist 365 v2: From EWS to Microsoft Graph API\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/microsoft-switching-off-ews-api#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/microsoft-switching-off-ews-api#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/Make-this-banner-lighter-and-brighter-with-a-cleaner-airier-enterprise-palette-while-preserving-the-legacy-to-cloud-migration-narrative-flowing-data-paths-and-generous-negative-space.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-08-24T07:54:52+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-08-24T08:10:28+00:00\",\"description\":\"BackupAssist 365 v2 moves from Microsoft's EWS API to Graph API, bringing faster backups, AES-256 encryption and a future-ready SQLite format.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/microsoft-switching-off-ews-api#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/microsoft-switching-off-ews-api\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/microsoft-switching-off-ews-api#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/Make-this-banner-lighter-and-brighter-with-a-cleaner-airier-enterprise-palette-while-preserving-the-legacy-to-cloud-migration-narrative-flowing-data-paths-and-generous-negative-space.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/Make-this-banner-lighter-and-brighter-with-a-cleaner-airier-enterprise-palette-while-preserving-the-legacy-to-cloud-migration-narrative-flowing-data-paths-and-generous-negative-space.png\",\"width\":1376,\"height\":768,\"caption\":\"Abstract visual representing the transition from legacy email backup technology to modern Microsoft Graph API\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/microsoft-switching-off-ews-api#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Microsoft is switching off the EWS API. Here&#8217;s how we&#8217;re moving forward, and what you need to do.\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Cyber Resilience Blog\",\"description\":\"Protect Your Cloud Data with BackupAssist\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Cyber Resilience Blog\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/BA-Logo-Full-Logo.svg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/BA-Logo-Full-Logo.svg\",\"caption\":\"Cyber Resilience Blog\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"}},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/523a9a01769da254de228dbd4b1328d3\",\"name\":\"Linus Chang\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/58a69ed0d0b9928d91dec6132dccfb646cc4230839af779f185531c722b0d017?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/58a69ed0d0b9928d91dec6132dccfb646cc4230839af779f185531c722b0d017?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Linus Chang\"},\"description\":\"*Founder &amp; Creator, BackupAssist* Linus Chang has been writing software since he was eight years old. He founded BackupAssist in 2002 \u2014 making him one of the longest-standing voices in Windows backup and data protection \u2014 and has spent the decades since talking to IT administrators around the world about what actually goes wrong, and why. His interest in data loss isn't abstract. Early in his career, he was working at the Monash University help desk when a student came in with a floppy disk that wouldn't read. They tried everything. None of their drives could read it either. The disk held her entire PhD dissertation \u2014 years of work \u2014 and it was the only copy. She broke down in tears. There was nothing he could do. Five years later, he wrote the first version of BackupAssist. Linus holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and has held Microsoft Certified Solution Developer and Sun Certified Java Programmer credentials. More recently, he has completed digital forensics and cyber-security courses through the Black Hat Conference. He has spoken on information security and cryptography at Infosecurity Europe, addressed politicians and policymakers at Australian Parliament House, presented to SMB IT administrators at the IT Pro Experts Conference, and served as a guest lecturer to Cyber Security master's students at the University of Melbourne. On this blog, Linus writes about backup strategy and the technical side of cyber-resilience \u2014 drawing on 24 years of product development and direct conversation with the IT professionals BackupAssist is built for. [Connect with Linus on LinkedIn](https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/linuschang\/)\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/author\/linus-chang\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"BackupAssist 365 v2: From EWS to Microsoft Graph API","description":"BackupAssist 365 v2 moves from Microsoft's EWS API to Graph API, bringing faster backups, AES-256 encryption and a future-ready SQLite format.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/microsoft-switching-off-ews-api","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"BackupAssist 365 v2: From EWS to Microsoft Graph API","og_description":"BackupAssist 365 v2 moves from Microsoft's EWS API to Graph API, bringing faster backups, AES-256 encryption and a future-ready SQLite format.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/microsoft-switching-off-ews-api","og_site_name":"Cyber Resilience Blog","article_published_time":"2026-08-24T07:54:52+00:00","article_modified_time":"2026-08-24T08:10:28+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1376,"height":768,"url":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/Make-this-banner-lighter-and-brighter-with-a-cleaner-airier-enterprise-palette-while-preserving-the-legacy-to-cloud-migration-narrative-flowing-data-paths-and-generous-negative-space.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Linus Chang","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Linus Chang","Est. reading time":"7 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/microsoft-switching-off-ews-api#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/microsoft-switching-off-ews-api"},"author":{"name":"Linus Chang","@id":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/523a9a01769da254de228dbd4b1328d3"},"headline":"Microsoft is switching off the EWS API. Here&#8217;s how we&#8217;re moving forward, and what you need to do.","datePublished":"2026-08-24T07:54:52+00:00","dateModified":"2026-08-24T08:10:28+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/microsoft-switching-off-ews-api"},"wordCount":1375,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/microsoft-switching-off-ews-api#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/Make-this-banner-lighter-and-brighter-with-a-cleaner-airier-enterprise-palette-while-preserving-the-legacy-to-cloud-migration-narrative-flowing-data-paths-and-generous-negative-space.png","keywords":["backup strategy","backupassist 365","cloud backup","Cyber Resilience","Data Security","Data Sovereignty","email backup","EWS","Exchange Online","Microsoft 365","Microsoft Graph API","ransomware","SQLite"],"articleSection":["BackupAssist 365"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/microsoft-switching-off-ews-api#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/microsoft-switching-off-ews-api","url":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/microsoft-switching-off-ews-api","name":"BackupAssist 365 v2: From EWS to Microsoft Graph API","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/microsoft-switching-off-ews-api#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/microsoft-switching-off-ews-api#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/Make-this-banner-lighter-and-brighter-with-a-cleaner-airier-enterprise-palette-while-preserving-the-legacy-to-cloud-migration-narrative-flowing-data-paths-and-generous-negative-space.png","datePublished":"2026-08-24T07:54:52+00:00","dateModified":"2026-08-24T08:10:28+00:00","description":"BackupAssist 365 v2 moves from Microsoft's EWS API to Graph API, bringing faster backups, AES-256 encryption and a future-ready SQLite format.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/microsoft-switching-off-ews-api#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/microsoft-switching-off-ews-api"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/microsoft-switching-off-ews-api#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/Make-this-banner-lighter-and-brighter-with-a-cleaner-airier-enterprise-palette-while-preserving-the-legacy-to-cloud-migration-narrative-flowing-data-paths-and-generous-negative-space.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/08\/Make-this-banner-lighter-and-brighter-with-a-cleaner-airier-enterprise-palette-while-preserving-the-legacy-to-cloud-migration-narrative-flowing-data-paths-and-generous-negative-space.png","width":1376,"height":768,"caption":"Abstract visual representing the transition from legacy email backup technology to modern Microsoft Graph API"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/microsoft-switching-off-ews-api#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Microsoft is switching off the EWS API. Here&#8217;s how we&#8217;re moving forward, and what you need to do."}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/","name":"Cyber Resilience Blog","description":"Protect Your Cloud Data with BackupAssist","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/#organization","name":"Cyber Resilience Blog","url":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/BA-Logo-Full-Logo.svg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/BA-Logo-Full-Logo.svg","caption":"Cyber Resilience Blog"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/523a9a01769da254de228dbd4b1328d3","name":"Linus Chang","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/58a69ed0d0b9928d91dec6132dccfb646cc4230839af779f185531c722b0d017?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/58a69ed0d0b9928d91dec6132dccfb646cc4230839af779f185531c722b0d017?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Linus Chang"},"description":"*Founder &amp; Creator, BackupAssist* Linus Chang has been writing software since he was eight years old. He founded BackupAssist in 2002 \u2014 making him one of the longest-standing voices in Windows backup and data protection \u2014 and has spent the decades since talking to IT administrators around the world about what actually goes wrong, and why. His interest in data loss isn't abstract. Early in his career, he was working at the Monash University help desk when a student came in with a floppy disk that wouldn't read. They tried everything. None of their drives could read it either. The disk held her entire PhD dissertation \u2014 years of work \u2014 and it was the only copy. She broke down in tears. There was nothing he could do. Five years later, he wrote the first version of BackupAssist. Linus holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and has held Microsoft Certified Solution Developer and Sun Certified Java Programmer credentials. More recently, he has completed digital forensics and cyber-security courses through the Black Hat Conference. He has spoken on information security and cryptography at Infosecurity Europe, addressed politicians and policymakers at Australian Parliament House, presented to SMB IT administrators at the IT Pro Experts Conference, and served as a guest lecturer to Cyber Security master's students at the University of Melbourne. On this blog, Linus writes about backup strategy and the technical side of cyber-resilience \u2014 drawing on 24 years of product development and direct conversation with the IT professionals BackupAssist is built for. [Connect with Linus on LinkedIn](https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/linuschang\/)","url":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/author\/linus-chang"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20271"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20274,"href":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20271\/revisions\/20274"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}