Office 365 AutoSave to OneDrive - how to choose the folder location where a new document is stored?

[Paul_Van_Cotthem]

In any Office 365 application, such as Word, Excel or PowerPoint, the titlebar shows an "AutoSave" button. Upon turning this function on, a dialog pops up where you choose which OneDrive to save the document to, and where you enter a name for the file. See screenshots below.

However, this dialog does not allow choosing in which folder on the OneDrive you want to save the document. All files get saved automatically in the "OneDrive/Documents" default folder.

Is there a way to change the behavior of Office apps, so that the user can select in which folder on the OneDrive the file will be stored in by AutoSave?

Click AutoSave buttonSelect OneDrive

Selection of folder on OneDrive not possible.

[#2]

@Muzzo4444 Oh how fascinating, I did not realize that. I also realized that there is a setting in OneDrive that I needed to change. If I right click on the OneDrive icon in the taskbar, then Settings --> Office I needed to check the "Use Office applications to sync Office files that I open" option. It was off previously, and once I made this change it seems to work when I turn on autosave even after opening the file from the folder. 

[#3]

.TurnerWFU Many thanks for that little Tip. I did not have that setting turned on in the OneDrive Settings either, so I have just repeated my test with that setting turned on, and the AutoSave worked when I opened the doc from the folder!

[#4]

@Muzzo4444 Slowly but surely we can accumulate a record of what works for others when they come searching...

[#5]

I've just tried the two things above that seem to work for others. Neither worked for me.

When opening a document from within the application (I used Word for the test), it opened with AutoSave turned off. When I tried to turn it on, it once again only gave me the option to auto-save it to the root document folder in OneDrive. The original document was already in the OneDrive heirarchy, in a sub-folder.

When I right click on the cloud icon on the task bar, and select settings, there is no "Office" selection at all under Settings. There are two tabs One is Settings, and the only selectable options there are to make all documents available when the PC is offline, and the other is a button to make all documents online-only. The other tab is More Info. The only option there is to "go to PC settings" to change other OneDrive options. When I do that, there is no option for Office. Save Documents to OneDrive by Default is On. Under Sync Settings, it looks like everything is on by default, though I'm not finding anything at all for Office Settings.

I'm using Windows 8.1 on a Dell laptop that I upgraded some time ago from Windows 7. AutoSave functions worked properly under Windows 7, and they work properly on my other computer, which is a Mac running Catalina.

[#6]

I attempted to reply here and my reply went nowhere ... is the thread now closed?

I'm trying to get this to work on Windows 8.1, on a Dell laptop that I upgraded not long ago from Windows 7. AutoSave worked just fine on Windows 7. It also still works fine on my other system, which is a Mac running Catalina. It's only since upgrading this computer that it has been broken.

Neither of these suggested options worked for me. Opening the document (the original of which is already saved within the OneDrive folder hierarchy, in a subfolder) from within Word, and then turning on Auto Save , only gave me the option to AutoSave the document to the root OneDrive folder.

When I right click on Settings in the OneDrive cloud taskbar icon, there is no option for Office settings at all. On the More Info item, Go To PC Settings also has no "Office" option. The defaults are all set already to save documents to OneDrive.

[#7]

@GayzeN Hello! As a heads-up, your messages were put into an approval queue, which is our automated spam filter, which our Tech Community team checks daily and moves messages out that don't belong.

We moved your message out of it this morning. You should have received a message to that effect (the approval queue) when you posted, sorry if that wasn't communicated better! 

[#8]

Hi, Thank you. I didn't receive an approval queue message, and the second try to post the same information went through immediately. I thought there was a glitch on my end. :) But thanks for your reply!

[#9]

Yes, this is exactly what I thought, too - but, no, it saves it to the Onedrive\Documents folder; so that I now we have two copies of the file in the Documents folder hierarchy: the newly autosaved one in the \Documents folder and the original in the subfolder it was opened from. This is why I turn off autosave and choose not to autosave my Word documents to Onedrive. I have far too often been working on a document that I subsequently realised was not the latest version I was most recently working on. It's bad for productivity.

[#10]

@Muzzo4444 well but have you tried to auto save it back to the folder where you have the file originaly stored with the same filename? .... Hey, Microsoft! why it is impossible?

[#11]

Thank you @f1demon! This is exactly what I was looking for!
When I would save as to change the folder to the proper subfolder on OneDrive I was only creating a copy of the document in that subfolder, and it would turn off autosave. When I'd turn on autosave again it would automatically save it to my OneDrive/Documents folder again, so the file in my designated subfolder wouldn't get updated. Your solution above finally allowed me to save to my designated subfolder without autosave turning off.

[#12]

@jjfence I also have this exact same problem on my Windows 10 machine. On my Mac I don't have this problem. In MS office, my autosave defaults to a root folder (I know how to change the root folder). If I then manually move the file to a subfolder of my choice and reopen the file, Autosave has turned off. Does anyone have a workaround?

[#13]

Am I reading that there is still no way to change where the autosave in Word365 saves to? It saves to my onedrive programs.exe folder. Why would it save there? I did not choose that even when first setting this up. I am trying to change the location to my onedrive document folder. This is also true for my phone, laptop, desktop and notebook. I assume other people were having it save to other folders (not of their choosing), but these are not all the same name, so there must be a way to change this.

I saw the question, Why don't you "save as" first. I have to admit that it is FASTER to click the autosave than it is to go to the save as and do all that. Autosave saves it immediately (after naming it, if you want to name it). It auto saves to the programs.exe folder, which I don't want, but I can go in and move it (from the drop down in word--where the document title is at the top of my screen) and select a new folder. It really would be simpler just to have it ask in the same place that I am titling the document the first time for the autosave.

What I don't understand is why I cannot change the autosave file location anywhere on the online onedrive. Since all of my tech is autosaving to the onedrive online programs.exe folder.

I did delete the online folder to see what would happen and it now gives me an error when i try to use autosave. So it seems I have to use their chosen folder or nothing.

[#14]

@nouseridleft This worked for me:

1. Turn on autosave

2. Go ahead and save the document to the default drive that appears (OneDrive for me)

3. At the top of the window to the left of the "Search" box you'll see the name of the document with a down arrow that says "Saved" or "Saving"

4. Click on the down arrow

5. Click on "Location"

6. Select the permanent location where you'd like the autosave file kept

7. Click "Move Here"

Not sure why they made this so convoluted, but at least you only have to do it once for each document.

[#15]

Hi,

This is what I do. Just seems like I should be able to choose where auto save saves to. Not my program files location.

[#16]

If you follow all the steps above you can save the document to whatever location you like. The solution isn't intuitive at all, but at least it is possible. Good luck!

[#17]

Thank you for responding and posting. I have tried this option to no success. Once I move the file by using the drop down method and then open the document again, the Autosave is off. When I click Autosave to turn it on again, the file is once again uploaded to the default location under a new file name. So it is like an old school do loop. I haven't found a solution that works.

[#18]

@nouseridleft I tried finding the file on OneDrive and dragging it to another folder too, and get the same results as you.

Instead, after clicking autosave and saving it to OneDrive forget about the copy it just saved to OneDrive. Click on the down arrow after the file name at the very top of the window (see attached picture). When you click on the down arrow it gives you the option to save the document to the location of  your choice, and when you click "Move Here" it always uses that new location to autosave your document.

[#19]

David_Robbins@Paul_Van_Cotthem 

I have documents in custom folders synced between my laptop and OneDrive.  For no apparent reason, AutoSave turns off.  When I select the slider to turn on, it shows the screen to upload to OneDrive resulting in a new document in the Documents folder.  This is poor file management.  Adding an option to select a directory would help.  

[#20]

I found registry keys that were tied to the default location:

Computer\HKEY_USERS\<User_ID>\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\ServicesManagerCache\Identities\<UID>_LiveId\WLINBOX_SKYDRIVE_<UID>

The keys to edit are named:

ConnectionUriDocumentsUrl

ConnectionUriEmailAttachmentsUrl

I set these to the root path as below and now my autosave is not hidden down a rabbit hole of folders on OneDrive (the UID is the same as in the path above):

https://d.docs.live.net/<UID>/  

Tested and the changes need  to be made on each computer that uses the same microsoft account for access (had to change it separately on my desktop and my laptop).

Hope this helps anyone else who winds up here looking for the answer to this annoying design decision.

[#21]

@Muzzo4444 

This thread had a lot of activity in 2020.  Here we are, 3 years later, and even with Windows 11, nothing has changed.  There doesn't seem to be a way to have the autosave function work except if the file is stored in onedrive>documents.  I have a whole hierarchy of folders under onedrive and would like to be able to select the appropriate one for my documents created in Office 365.  These are in my case created in Word, Excel or Powerpoint.  Of course, I can (and do) save files "manually" in these folders but it would be a help if MS allowed me to autosave them there rather than in the default (documents) folder.