How to stop Word saving to OneDrive

Time needed: 2 minutes.

This is how to stop recent versions of Word (we’ve tested this back to Word 2016) on the PC defaulting to OneDrive every time you hit the Save button.

1. Open Word’s settings

   Open Word, and create a new document. Click on the File menu in the top left-hand corner and then click on Options in the bottom-left corner of the window.

2. Choose Save To Computer

   Click Save from the sidebar on the left-hand side of the window that appears. Then, in the right-hand pane, tick the option that says “Save to Computer by default”.

3. Choose a new destination folder

   You now need to tell Word which folder you’d like to save documents in by default. Hit the Browse button next to “Default local file location” and navigate to the folder that you wish to use. I’ve chosen a folder in my Dropbox, which I find far more reliable and flexible as a cloud service than OneDrive. Your screen should look something like this now:
   

4. Finish and test

   Now click OK at the bottom of the screen and test whether it’s working by typing a few random words and hitting Save. Hopefully, it should default to your new location.