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How does word with one drive integration work?

Anonymous
2023-03-16T21:36:32+00:00

One drive is simple. You save a file in a location and it gets uploaded to the cloud. Every other computer downloads that file and everything stays synced up.

With the way things used to work with office you saved a file to your one drive location and you have a local copy (even if one drive wasn't syncing properly). The new (I know it's been around for a while) word with one drive integration seems to work differently. There seems to be no local copy being saved. Instead it saves to one drive and then one drive syncs to save the local copy.

I would like to know how the one drive integration for office works. (I would also like to know what the reasoning is for having it and how it is better than just letting one drive do its thing like normal). The reason I am asking is because I have always had issues with this one drive integration with office. My work around is to save to a local location and then copy the file to one drive after I'm done editing so as to keep from having issues. The problem is that sometimes I just make a word file and forget to save to a local location. Sometimes I accidently save to my normal one drive location and then madness follows.

Case in point: Currently my word doc says Saving.... constantly. But its not saving. When you try to select a location it says "Sorry. Were having a hard time finding files in this folder. Try opening the folder again." The only option is cancel. (Move here is grayed out). I try saving it in another location and same thing happens.

I believe that with this file I'm currently having issues with office can't save to one drive. If office does indeed save directly to the cloud and then one drive syncs to your local location afterwards then what seems to happen if there is an issue with word uploading is that the file doesn't get saved at all (not even an auto recover).

The fun part with my current case is that whatever was keeping office from syncing with one drive eventually crashed windows. (and guess what, no auto recover).

On a side note: How is it even possible to lose information in 2023? We could save a new version of my document every time I typed a new letter and not touch the amount of space on my SSD. Why doesn't word turn the screen RED and say "Your document is not being saved. There is an issue we can't resolve. Please fix the issue before something bad happens and you lose all of your work" Can we add that feature in?

Another fact that leads me to believe that word saves directly to one drive and one drive syncs afterwards is that if I open a word doc on my one drive and save it as a .pdf it appears in my one drive and I have to wait for one drive to sync before I can use the local copy. This is extremely annoying because when I save a pdf I am usually doing so because I need to attach it in an e-mail. Syncing takes a minute or so and I have no wish to wait the 1-30 minutes it might take for one drive to realize that it needs to sync so what I end up doing is downloading the file directly from one drive to my downloads folder and attaching it from there.

Is there any way to turn all this madness off? I don't want it Sam I am.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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  1. Charles Kenyon 167.2K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2023-03-18T18:43:40+00:00

    Note, this is not the place to get any changes made in Word nor the attention of developers at Microsoft. This is an independent user-to-user support forum. MS does not see anything you post here. The way to get their attention is through the feedback mechanisms.

    My personal preference is to use the Word Feedback Portal. If you do, please get a share link and post it here so that others seeing this thread can go there and vote and comment. While you are there, check for other posts and feel free to vote and comment on those as well!

    Microsoft will do what Microsoft feels is best for their business plan. That currently includes making the default to save in OneDrive. To me, this is sensible, as a default. It is one location they know that every 365 user has.

    You can switch the default save location to any folder on your computer that you wish.

    File > Options > Save

    Image

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  2. Suzanne S Barnhill 277.5K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2023-03-18T21:58:41+00:00

    As I understand it, Word will still save your documents in a folder synchronized with OneDrive; to remedy this, you can move the Documents folder out of OneDrive as described at https://www.reddit.com/r/onedrive/comments/hnn1he/remove_documents_folder_from_onedrive/

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  3. Stefan Blom 341K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2023-03-18T19:16:59+00:00

    Microsoft apparently wants to promote the use of their online storage in their subscription product, and that is why online saving is the default. As Charles said, you can change the default save location in Word/Office by choosing the "Save to Computer by default" option at File > Options > Save.

    You can also turn off the synchronization to OneDrive from within the local OneDrive app.

    You can still upload occasional files to OneDrive if you wish, using your web browser.

    Feedback to Microsoft can be sent via File > Feedback.

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-03-18T16:08:42+00:00

    So if "The only 'local copy' is the OneDrive Folder in file explorer that contains a cached copy of OneDrive Content." why has MS decided that this is the optimal way to save items for an offline app like word? If I wanted to save directly to the web I would use word online not the offline version. Believe it or not, even in this day and time I don't always have internet access on my laptop. This is why I want to have a local copy of all my data.

    I guess my question is more of a complaint because I have lost data twice now due to this one drive integration with the word app. I think I have figured out what settings I need to select to get things saving locally again but I must ask why MS thinks this is better. I went several years without losing data after MS implemented the auto recover feature. I've never lost data with online word or docs. If I am using an offline app its usually because I might be offline at some point so I don't want it have a meltdown when I lose internet connection and then crash, costing me a ton of wasted time.

    Can we please have O365 save stuff locally by default or what would make sense is to save setting across the platform. I log into my word account so why do I have to replicate all my default settings to every other computer with the same app on it?

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  5. Anonymous
    2023-03-18T08:07:06+00:00

    The core O365 cpmponents, excluding MS Outlook data, all save to OneDrive by default.

    The only 'local copy' is the OneDrive Folder in file explorer that contains a cached copy of OneDrive Content.

    The default installation of Office 365 and its OneDrive component uploads all the contents of the PC  \My Documents\ folders to OneDrive, (syncs) and there will be a OneDrive folder in File Explorer containing all the OneDrive content. And in Word etc the default Save location is set to OneDrive.

    No Docs/data is stored on the local PC

    Personaly I print to pdf if I need to attach a doc

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