OneNote and Exporting/Saving Notebooks

Question

Hi Guys,

I don't understand why OneNote has to be so tedious.

I love the thing, I have so many work related workflows for programs and such in there but I absolutely hate the process of saving a notebook.

My work PC has its own notebook but because I work for the government, it's a pain for me to transfer it over to my personal computer. As I can't export the entire notebook. I'm forced to individually save worksheets.

My personal PC, because I use a protonmail, I can't get onto onedrive. So in order to back things up, I also have to export individual notebooks, every time I update something. I don't want to lose my notebooks in-case something happens to my computer.

1- Is there an easier way to go about this?
2 - Right clicking a worksheet > Export > Saving to External - does this mean, say, I can open it and drag it onto a new onenote on a new pc if required?

Answer 1

No.

Under normal circumstances you can always export a whole notebook as a .onepkg file.

In some work environments this may be forbidden, for reasons.

On Windows you can always import single .one files, per double click. They land in Open Sections from where you can move them to an existing notebook.

Bernd

Answer 2

Hi Matt,

Thank you.

So, from your reply, I can deduce that if you export it as a .one file extension, it won't load onto a new OneNote? Interesting, good to know.

Thank you.

Answer 3

Hello Emre,

Your engagement sparks valuable discussions, and we're grateful for your input.

As per your description, OneNote lacks a built-in feature to export entire notebooks, forcing users to manually save individual sections or pages, making cross-device transfers tedious.

Unfortunately, OneNote does not currently support exporting an entire notebook in one step, especially for work or school accounts. The export feature is only available for notebooks stored on personal OneDrive accounts. Since your work PC is restricted, and your personal PC does not have OneDrive access, you are limited to exporting individual sections or pages.

To transfer your notebook manually, you can export sections as OneNote Package (.onepkg) files. This format allows you to import the sections into OneNote on another PC. To do this:

1. Open OneNote and navigate to the section you want to export.
2. Right-click the section and select Export.
3. Choose OneNote Package (.onepkg) as the format.
4. Save the file to an external drive or another location.
5. On the new PC, open OneNote and import the .onepkg file.

Regarding your second question, exporting a worksheet (page) and saving it externally does not allow you to drag and drop it into a new OneNote notebook. Instead, you would need to import the saved file manually.

For more details, visit the official Microsoft support page on exporting and importing OneNote notebooks: Export and Import OneNote Notebooks.

I hope these insights bring you closer to resolving your concern.

Regards,

Matt | Microsoft Community Moderator