Word 2016 - slow to open documents, need to force exit (via task manager)

Question

Hello all!

I have recently come across an issue on Word 2016 in which opening document files takes a relatively long time. Before the issue, files would open in less than a minute. Now, it can take up to 10 minutes to open a file. 

I am also having issues with saving documents and closing out of Word. I am never sure if my documents actually save because Word freezes up when I try to save. It also freezes when I try to exit, so I have to force an exit through the task manager. 

I started experiencing this a couple of days ago, but I had not been using Word for the two weeks beforehand. 

Note: I save and retrieve my files from OneDrive.

Any help is much appreciated. Thank you!

Answer 1

I have the same issue, and my OneDrive folder is local on my HD.   Since the files are local, the issue is almost certainly related to OneDrive Sync process and Word.   I see this issue has been raised elsewhere since the times of Window 7...

The only way around it that I've found is to quit the OneDrive process, edit the files in the OneDrive folder, and then start the OneDrive process.   You might be able to get the same result if you pause OneDrive.   The downside is that you lose file locking if you're working in a OneDrive shared folder (not locally shared, but shared via OneDrive).  Since I do this primarily, this could be part of the issue as well.