restore my ability to select either One Drive or This PC

Question

restore my ability to select either One Drive or This PC

Martin Johnson 20

In the previous version of Word, I was able to save to "this PC" or to OneDrive. It appears that I can only save to OneDrive, and I no longer have that option. Is that true, and if not, how do I restore the option to select which drive to save my Word files? I have Windows 11 and am a Microsoft 365 subscriber.

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Answer 1

In Microsoft Word, you should still have the option to save documents to either "This PC" or OneDrive. If you are only seeing the OneDrive option, it could be due to the default save settings in Word. Here’s how you can restore the option to select where to save your files:

Open Word and go to File.
Click on Options at the bottom of the left-hand menu.
In the Word Options dialog, select Save from the list on the left.
Under the Save documents section, look for the option that says "Save to Computer by default". Make sure this option is checked. If it is not, check it to enable saving to your PC.
Click OK to save your changes.

After making this change, you should be able to see both "This PC" and OneDrive as options when you save a document.

If the problem persists, ensure that your Microsoft 365 subscription is active and that you have the latest updates installed for Office applications.

Answer 2

I have everything checked as per above and I still cannot save to PC. I read in another link that if my subscription is held through Office 365 online it will prevent me from saving to the computer. I have no faith that in the future Microsoft won't lock me out of my documents, which is why I saved to the computer and Dropbox. Microsoft is not helping but hurting small businesses. I have also found Microsoft online apps are not as robust. This action by Microsoft is not okay. You buy a product, even on a subscription, and have certain expectations from past performance.

Hi Tricia, OneDrive by design takes over wherever it can to assist the User. The only way to do what you appear to be wanting to do is to create a new Documents Folder on C Drive. You can call it Tricias Documents. The old Documents Folder on C Drive will be empty as OneDrive will have grabbed all the documents when it was setup. Do not use this System Documents Folder, as OneDrive may be tempted to grab the documents at some point. If go to>This PC\C:\Users\UserName You will see all the folders on your C Drive. You will see the blue OneDrive Folder. Everything in there is on OneDrive (open it and see). Everything else is on C Drive and NOT on OneDrive. You will see all the system folders, like Documents, Music etc. This is where you can create your Tricis Documents Folder.

Now you can open Word>File>Options>Save>At Default local file location>Point it to your Tricias Documents Folder. You can see my documents that are not on OneDrive are saved to my D Drive. Note: When you create a new document you should create it in the folder where you want to save it in the future.

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Answer 3

Tricia 0

I have everything checked as per above and I still cannot save to PC. I read in another link that if my subscription is held through Office 365 online it will prevent me from saving to the computer. I have no faith that in the future Microsoft won't lock me out of my documents, which is why I saved to the computer and Dropbox. Microsoft is not helping but hurting small businesses. I have also found Microsoft online apps are not as robust. This action by Microsoft is not okay. You buy a product, even on a subscription, and have certain expectations from past performance.

Ron Barker 1,965 Reputation points

2026-03-17T15:50:00.31+00:00

Hi, is this turned off:

I have not turned it Off, but I am using the Free 5 GBs OneDrive. What actually happens when you use 'Save As'?
Ron Barker 1,965 Reputation points

2026-03-17T16:47:11.56+00:00

PS: I do not see how OneDrive can prevent you saving to your computer. Even Q&A Assist says you can save to the computer and it is marked as the answer.
Stefan Blom 340.3K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator

2026-03-17T22:26:18.7066667+00:00

I have everything checked as per above and I still cannot save to PC. I read in another link that if my subscription is held through Office 365 online it will prevent me from saving to the computer.

Tricia,

Which specific product do you have? Subscriptions that do not include the full desktop versions of the Office apps will force you to save in OneDrive online. One example would be Microsoft 365 Basic which supports saving to the OneDrive "cloud," and it also includes the web apps and mobile apps.

Regardless of subscription product, if you have set up your computer to synchronize documents (this is often the default when you set up a new PC), to prevent documents from synchronizing with the cloud you have to explicitly save them outside of the local OneDrive folder.

It is possible to turn off sync completely. See the "Unlink OneDrive from your computer" section in the article at https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/turn-off-disable-or-uninstall-onedrive-f32a17ce-3336-40fe-9c38-6efb09f944b0 . The screen shot below offers the description on how to do this under Windows 10 or 11.

Note that if you have further questions, consider creating a new question. This thread is rather old by now (it was started in November 2025).
Ron Barker 1,965 Reputation points

2026-03-18T07:38:30.0166667+00:00

Stefan, just to be clear Microsoft 365 Basic changes/increase the 5GB Free OneDrive to 100GBs, that is it so far as storage is concerned. As you say it does not include Apps, such as Word etc. The free 5GB OneDrive when setup does grab all the users documents, pictures, Music etc and puts them on OneDrive. There is no need to unlink the PC from OneDrive to store some documents etc on C Drive. You just need to create folders on C Drive to save your documents there, that is save at This PC\C:\Users\UserName. I have done this although I actually point save as to my D Drive, which I backup to an external hard drive.
Ron Barker 1,965 Reputation points

2026-03-18T07:47:08.6+00:00

PS see my C Drive. You can see the Blue OneDrive and you can see my Rons Documents Folder. You can also see the System Documents Folder as well as the Pictures and Music system Folders, which are empty because my 5GB free OneDrive grabbed them and put them on OneDrive.
Stefan Blom 340.3K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator

2026-03-18T07:52:32.9466667+00:00

There is no need to unlink the PC from OneDrive to store some documents etc on C Drive. You just need to create folders on C Drive to save your documents there [---]

Hi Ron,

Indeed, individual documents can always be saved outside the local OneDrive folder to prevent those documents from synchronizing.

However, what is the best course of action will depend on what Tricia is actually trying to do. That is another good reason to start a new thread rather than to tack onto an existing thread. :-)
Ron Barker 1,965 Reputation points

2026-03-18T08:23:46.3233333+00:00

Hi Stefan, Tricia was very clear what she wanted to do "how do I restore the option to select which drive to save my Word files? I have Windows 11 and am a Microsoft 365 subscriber." Q&A Assist gave a clear answer, re save to save documents to PC or OneDrive. I just added on how to do it by creating a Folder on C Drive, as I personally had previously done, so I know it works. Might be best to lock this thread! Cheers.
Stefan Blom 340.3K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator

2026-03-18T08:31:23.69+00:00

Ron, I believe that is what the original poster, Martin Johnson, said. It isn't clear to me that Tricia was asking the exact same thing.
Ron Barker 1,965 Reputation points

2026-03-18T09:20:41.63+00:00

Stefan, yes sorry.

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restore my ability to select either One Drive or This PC

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