Forum Discussion
Office 365 AutoSave to OneDrive - how to choose the folder location where a new document is stored?
In any Office 365 application, such as Word, Excel or PowerPoint, the titlebar shows an "AutoSave" button. Upon turning this function on, a dialog pops up where you choose which OneDrive to save the ...
Paul_Van_CotthemAlthough you can't change the default folder for OneDrive in Office AutoSave there is a way to change the OneDrive folder WITHIN Word/Excel/Powerpoint itself but only AFTER you have saved it by any name.
To do this first AutoSave your file to OneDrive:
Once saved, click the Menu option for Version history on the same bar as AutoSave in Word:
Then click the >Location drop down - This tab also shows the OneDrive folder where your file has been saved by default and then in the next window you can move it wherever you want:
It's really typical and frustrating that Microsoft doesn't provide an option for something as basic as selecting a DEFAULT folder for AutoSave!!
- Thank you f1demon! This is exactly what I was looking for!
When I would save as to change the folder to the proper subfolder on OneDrive I was only creating a copy of the document in that subfolder, and it would turn off autosave. When I'd turn on autosave again it would automatically save it to my OneDrive/Documents folder again, so the file in my designated subfolder wouldn't get updated. Your solution above finally allowed me to save to my designated subfolder without autosave turning off.jjfence I also have this exact same problem on my Windows 10 machine. On my Mac I don't have this problem. In MS office, my autosave defaults to a root folder (I know how to change the root folder). If I then manually move the file to a subfolder of my choice and reopen the file, Autosave has turned off. Does anyone have a workaround?
nouseridleft This worked for me:
1. Turn on autosave
2. Go ahead and save the document to the default drive that appears (OneDrive for me)
3. At the top of the window to the left of the "Search" box you'll see the name of the document with a down arrow that says "Saved" or "Saving"
4. Click on the down arrow
5. Click on "Location"
6. Select the permanent location where you'd like the autosave file kept
7. Click "Move Here"
Not sure why they made this so convoluted, but at least you only have to do it once for each document.
f1demon Thanks, this resolved the issue I had, where auto save insisted the file was located in the default document folder root. If I moved it in OneDrive the Auto Save was disabled again and I was going around in circles!!
However, changing the location in Word as you described worked ok !
This thread had a lot of activity in 2020. Here we are, 3 years later, and even with Windows 11, nothing has changed. There doesn't seem to be a way to have the autosave function work except if the file is stored in onedrive>documents. I have a whole hierarchy of folders under onedrive and would like to be able to select the appropriate one for my documents created in Office 365. These are in my case created in Word, Excel or Powerpoint. Of course, I can (and do) save files "manually" in these folders but it would be a help if MS allowed me to autosave them there rather than in the default (documents) folder.
- I too have a detailed file structure, mine is on my 'D' Drive separate to programs etc on my 'C' Drive. I want to work on my files on my drive and have them saved to OneDrive on the same file structure. The structure is there but I cannot auto save to that structure. Furthermore when I open my file on my drive the autosave option is clear. I reset it but then have multi files on Onedrive of the same.
How difficult is it to improve this? I/We get choice to save files where wanted everywhere apart from this, and as stated, this has been a point of disgruntlement for many years. Isn't it about time that this is resolved?
Muzzo4444 well but have you tried to auto save it back to the folder where you have the file originaly stored with the same filename? .... Hey, Microsoft! why it is impossible?
Muzzo4444 Sadly this did not work for me. When I change it's location using the bar at the top, and then close the file and re-open it within that location, the auto-save is no longer turned on. And when I turn it on, it asks me to re-upload it again and puts it right back in the default Documents folder. This is pretty disappointing behavior and I don't believe it always worked this way. I'm not sure if this is the intended behavior but it discourages use of AutoSave (including for collaborating on documents) because I can't find a simple way to turn saving on and off.
TurnerWFU If I open the document from the folder structures or from onedrive, I see the same behaviour as you - the doc will not Auto Save if it is not in the default folder. To resolve this, I always open the document from within the application. For example, if you are using Word, open the document from the File/Home/Recent list, Auto Save will then work irrespective of the folder the document was last saved in.
- Thank you f1demon for this work-around. This has been driving me batty for several days. I agree, AutoSave should just give users the ability to select the location initially, rather than having to move the file after it's already saved. I have been trying to get files already in subfolders in OneDrive to open and auto-save to their original locations on a new (to me, anyway) PC, and they were all going as new copies into the Documents root folder instead. Now, at least, I can create copies this way and move them as needed. I greatly appreciate your input to this thread.
Dear All
As this discussion thread talks about "Auto Save" feature of Office 365, I just want to understand whether this Auto Save feature has any connection to the OneDrive Sync GPO "Coauthor and share in Office desktop apps".
We have disabled this OneDrive sync client GPO due to slowness of opening the documents from sync location, this Auto Save feature is greyed out by default. When we enabled this GPO, the Auto Save feature is enabled.
But, the weird thing is that after we disabled again the GPO, the Auto Save feature is disabled (not greyed out) by default and option to enabled in the individual documents.
Can someone faced this issue or really this GPO affect the Auto Save functionality. Need your experts advice here.
Thanks
Chandrasekaran C N
