OneNote Default Notebook Location Empty

Question

I have an Office 365 subscription.  I'm using OneNote 2016 on three different Windows 10 64 bit systems and on Windows Phone.  All the software is up to date.  While setting up a fourth computer, I noticed that even though I have about 250 MB of notebooks, sections and pages, my Default Notebook Location, "C:\Users\Me\Documents\OneNote Notebooks", was totally empty - no folders or files.  I also noticed that my Backup Folder, "D:\OneNote Notebooks", had an incomplete copy of my OneNote data even though I have the backup frequency set to one hour.

To try to correct this I went to File>Settings>Properties>Change Location set the location of my notebook to "C:\Users\Me\Documents\OneNote Notebooks".  Then I did a manual backup of all notebooks.  That seemed to work since both the Default Notebook Location and the Backup Folder had complete copies of my OneNote data.  However, when I checked my View Sync Status, the sync options were greyed out and there was also a new Share option at the file menu the said "To share this notebook, you'll need to put it on OneDrive or SharePoint".

It seems like having a local copy of my notebook at "C:\Users\Me\Documents\OneNote Notebooks" is mutually exclusive with being able to sync my notebook with my other computers and phone using OneNote's native sync facility.  Is that true?  What is the best approach to syncing OneNote?  Should I just give up on having a local copy at "C:\Users\Me\Documents\OneNote Notebooks"?

Also if I want to change my notebook location back to the shared cloud site, what is the address of that location?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Answer 1

It seems like having a local copy of my notebook at "C:\Users\Me\Documents\OneNote Notebooks" is mutually exclusive with being able to sync my notebook with my other computers and phone using OneNote's native sync facility.  Is that true?

YES !

To use any mobile version of Onenote the notebook must be on Onedrive.

Just use the Share feature to move it back/there. 

Bernd