"is open in another application. Please close it and try again" and "word was unable to open the data source" in Word

Question

Hello,

When I choose Mailings in Word --> Select recipients --> Use an existing list --> I select my file, it is ABC.doc. In ABC.doc, it has only a table. But I have 2 notifications, the first is "... is open in another application. Please close it and try again" and the second is "word was unable to open the data source".

I am using Microsoft 365 Family, I always turn on Autosave at top left of Word. I updated the last Office's version.

Best regards,

Huong

Answer 1

Your reference to using AutoSave indicates that you're saving all your documents to OneDrive, either directly or by saving to a local folder that's synchronized with OneDrive. That's likely what makes Word think that your "ABC.doc" source is being used by "another application".

Try saving a copy of that source document in a folder on your local drive that is not synchronized by OneDrive, and use that copy as the mail merge source.

Answer 2

Hi Jay Freedman,

Thanks for you help!

I change settings in Onedrive about Autosave, and then I can open my file.

Best regards,

Huong