Word for Mac: “Location Cannot Be Determined” and Save Loop When Using iCloud Drive (Optimize Mac Storage On)I recently spent several frustrating days troubleshooting a Word for Mac save-loop problem and wanted to share what I found, since it may help oth

Question

About this post:

I’m sharing this detailed account to help both users and engineers understand and reproduce a persistent Word-for-Mac save-loop issue that occurs when using iCloud Drive with “Optimize Mac Storage” enabled.

I recently spent several frustrating days troubleshooting a Word for Mac save-loop problem and wanted to share what I found, since it may help others (and perhaps the Microsoft team).

Symptoms

• When closing or quitting Word, I repeatedly got the dialog “Do you want to save the changes…” even after saving.

Sometimes Word said “The location of the document cannot be determined.”

The file would seem to disappear, then re-open or reappear later.

In two cases, Word documents appeared to vanish entirely.

Environment

macOS Sequoia (also reproducible on Sonoma)

Microsoft Word 16.xx (Office 365 subscription)

Documents stored in iCloud Drive ▸ Desktop ▸ [project folders]

“Optimize Mac Storage” was ON

Word did not have Full Disk Access

Root cause (confirmed)

When “Optimize Mac Storage” is turned on, macOS sometimes offloads local copies of files to iCloud.

Word’s autosave system then tries to write a temporary file beside the document, but:

the document’s folder may no longer exist locally, and

macOS’s privacy sandbox blocks Word from writing there (since it lacks Full Disk Access).

Word interprets that as the file being moved or deleted, producing the “location cannot be determined” alert and endless save prompts.

Fix / Work-around

In System Settings → Apple ID → iCloud → iCloud Drive → Options, turn off “Optimize Mac Storage.”

(Keep “Desktop & Documents Folders” turned on.)

In System Settings → Privacy & Security → Full Disk Access, add Microsoft Word and toggle it on.

Restart Word (or the Mac).

After those two changes, saving and quitting Word from iCloud folders works normally again—no more “cannot be determined” messages or disappearing documents.

Suggestion

If possible, Word could detect when it’s working in an optimized-iCloud folder and display a clearer warning, or Apple could automatically grant trusted apps write permission to iCloud Drive when Optimize Mac Storage is active.

Hope this helps both users and developers.

– Don Weaver

Answer 1

Hi Donald,

Thanks for sharing your fix for that Word-for-Mac save-loop issue. This is highly appreciated.

I really recommend you send feedback via 2 ways. First, go to the Help tab, select Feedback, choose an option like "I like something" or "I don't like something," and then describe your feedback before submitting. Alternatively, you can use the "Send Feedback" option in a Microsoft 365 app or the keyboard shortcut Windows key + F to open the Feedback Hub. 

Regards,

Rez