I recently have access to the Notebooks in Copilot after the recent update, including chat search!, when using chat within a created notebook, has anyone else seen an issue with Copilot making the document actually available for download? I've tried different ways and only get it telling me the file is ready to download in this location: "sandbox:/mnt/data/[filename is listed here]". My first thought was maybe it wa just putting this newly generated file into the References within the Notebook...but it was not. If I get out of the chat in a Notebook and just start a new web or work chat and ask for the same file to be created, it works as usual with a link to download.

This is becoming dangerous! I have to keep rewriting training documentation on functionalities. From one moment to the next, I'm having to second guess Microsoft's dev. SaaS, sure - but this is beyond beta-testing! My training content is never trustworthy! I have evidenced Excel analysis via Analyst and via Notebook, perfectly. Now, less than a week later, the product is useless and returns a sandboxed visualisation path that is inaccessible! Why are we paying for that!? Not fit for purpose and costing us a fortune in re-trainings! PS: Word and PPT are not the only fruits! Analyst and Notebook are supposed to number crunch and now, whether they do or not, the completions are unfathomable, as the sandboxing secretes them somewhere inaccessible!! Pointless and, I imagine, part of a redesign that we're all paying to be an extension of MS dev beta-testing. We have day jobs! Oh, I see - OneNote Notebook has now been redev'd to include links to Copilot's Notebooks. And OneNote Copilot now surfaces (wrongly) not a completion to my prompt, but a Search for content within my ecosystem! Again - wrong behaviour. I think this is dangerous off the cuff SaaS agile implementation!

I'm having the same issue. I'm using Copilot Notebooks on the Microsoft 365 Copilot home page and every file it creates for me is saved to: sandbox:/mnt/data/ [filename]I still haven't found a solution other than going directly to PPT or Word and entering the prompt, or worse, switching to ChatGPT, which I don't want to do because I need everything organized within my M365 Copilot account.

I have the same issue. The file generated in the copilot notebook can't be downloaded

As of today, this issue has resolved for me—files are now saving and accessible as expected. I didn’t change anything on my end, so I’m not sure what fixed it.At the time I submitting my post, I couldn’t access those files from my M365 environment. Another twist...during a recent client Copilot training session with a leadership team, 1 out of 12 executives (from the same company) experienced the same "sandbox" link issue, while the rest could access their Copilot-generated files normally. All 12 were using the same IT configuration, which makes this even more puzzling.📣 Questions for the community:Has anyone else seen this issue resolve on its own?If you’ve found a specific fix or explanation, could you share it?Could this be a permissions or sync issue that only affects certain accounts?Appreciate any insights—especially for those supporting teams where only a few users are affected.

I noticed the same problem. It happened in the browser or the app.

Copilot Notebooks chat and file creation

30 Replies

Anesthesia
Copper Contributor
Jun 11, 2025
I follow this one with you, as I am struggling with exactly the same issue.
I manage to do all what it take to have the Excel I need - but it only produces files in the sandbox.

I notice that every time I ask copilot to generate a file, it produces a folder with some files in C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Containers\ContainerStorages.

That's all I know - in addition to the fact that I need that Excel files!! :D
VickieMurph
Iron Contributor
Jun 11, 2025
To enable the Copilot notebook feature, click the Copilot icon in OneNote and select New Notebook. Also, log in to the Microsoft 365 account page to confirm the subscription includes Copilot for Microsoft 365 to ensure compliance with license permissions.
- SnoqBob
  Copper Contributor
  Jul 05, 2025
  That's not the issue. Copilot is not sharing what it is creating when in Notebook. I'm fully logged into and licensed as I am sure most others are too. No matter what you tell Copilot to do, it saves all created documented into the sandbox which isn't accessible by users. This is a bug Microsoft. Microsoft needs to address it. Makes the notebook function basically unusable. If we can't share a notebook, and I can see reasons for that, at least let us manually export files Copilot creates and use our decision-making to manually share them as we see fit.
xmpierce
Copper Contributor
Jun 10, 2025
I noticed the same problem. It happened in the browser or the app.

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Copilot Notebooks chat and file creation

30 Replies

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