The short answer
Where are OneNote files stored, by default?
Where are OneNote files stored? For most people, in the cloud. When you create a notebook in desktop OneNote, File, New asks where it should go, and the two main choices are OneDrive or This PC. Microsoft recommends OneDrive or another shared location, so that the notebook stays up to date on every device you sign in to, and it stays private unless you share it. If you picked OneDrive, or never picked at all because OneNote made your first notebook for you, the real notebook sits in your OneDrive account and your computer holds a working copy.
The other OneNote apps leave you less choice. Microsoft’s FAQ for OneNote for Mac says it continually syncs all of your notes with OneDrive, which is why it asks you to sign in, and that offline you keep working in a cached, locally saved copy that syncs back when you reconnect. Old OneNote 2010 and 2013 notebooks saved on a PC have to be moved to OneDrive or SharePoint before a Mac, iPhone, iPad or Android device can open them, and Microsoft notes that OneNote notebooks saved in OneDrive are limited to 2GB.
| Notebook lives | On the device | |
|---|---|---|
| OneNote on Windows (desktop) | OneDrive, SharePoint or This PC | Working copy, plus backups |
| OneNote for Mac | OneDrive | Cached copy for offline |
| iPad, iPhone, Android | OneDrive or SharePoint | Synced copy |
| OneNote for the web | OneDrive or SharePoint | Nothing |
Find yours
How to find where one notebook is stored on Windows
Desktop OneNote will tell you where each notebook lives if you know which screens to open. You do not need File Explorer for any of this, and it is safer not to start there.
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1
Open File, Info
Every open notebook is listed with a Settings button beside it. Settings, then Properties, opens that notebook’s Notebook Properties box.
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2
Open File, Open
Notebooks stored on OneDrive appear under Open from OneDrive. Anything kept elsewhere is reached through Open from other locations, which is your clue that it is not in the cloud.
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3
Open File, Options, Save & Backup
This screen holds the Default Notebook Location for new local notebooks and the Backup Folder, the two folder paths on your own machine that matter.
If a notebook shows under Open from OneDrive, the notes are in your OneDrive account and nowhere else in full. If it only appears under other locations, it is a local or network notebook, and that folder is the only place it exists, which matters a great deal for backups.
The 1 KB file
Why the OneNote file on your PC is only a few bytes
The most common reason people go looking for their OneNote files is that they found one and it was suspiciously small. On Microsoft’s own Q&A forum, one person describes a Default Notebook Location folder that did not exist on disk, and a handful of 1 KB shortcut files in Documents named after their notebooks, each pointing to OneDrive. Another found only 177-byte files holding a URL. That is the expected shape for a cloud notebook: the file is a pointer, and the notebook is on OneDrive.
The same logic explains why a notebook can survive what looks like deleting it. Removing the pointer only drops the notebook from that computer’s list; the files are untouched online. Our guide on how to delete a notebook in OneNote walks through doing it properly in OneDrive.
The file is a pointer, and the notebook is on OneDrive.On the tiny OneNote file in Documents
Backups
Where OneNote backups are stored, and how to move them
Automatic backup is only available in the Windows desktop version of OneNote, according to Microsoft’s backup guide. It backs up your notebook files automatically each week, into the Backup Folder named under File, Options, Save & Backup. Answers on Microsoft’s Q&A forum give the usual default on Windows as C:\Users\<your name>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\OneNote\<version>\Backup, but trust the path your own Save & Backup screen shows over any path you read online, because it can be changed.
Microsoft’s advice is to change it. Its guide says to choose a backup location that is not on your computer’s hard drive, such as a private network folder or a USB drive: Backup Folder, Modify, pick the folder, Select, OK. The same screen has Back Up All Notebooks Now for a manual run after a big session, and a Number of backup copies to keep setting so newer backups do not overwrite the sets you want to archive.
To get notes back, Microsoft points to File, Info, Open Backups, where you open the backed-up section and copy its pages into a live notebook. For something deleted recently, check the History tab first: the Notebook Recycle Bin keeps deleted pages and sections for up to 60 days. One caution from the forum: a user who checked their AppData backups found they did not include the notebook’s embedded photos, so treat the automatic backup as a safety net rather than a full archive. If your problem is notes that never arrived on another device, that is a sync fault, and our OneNote sync troubleshooting guide covers it.
Your own copy
How to keep a full copy of a OneNote notebook yourself
For a notebook on a personal OneDrive account, the cleanest full copy comes from OneNote for the web. Open it in a browser, right-click the notebook, choose Export notebook, confirm, and the notebook downloads as a ZIP file with a folder named after it. Microsoft notes this only works for notebooks on personal OneDrive accounts, not OneDrive for work or school or SharePoint, that large notebooks with scans and recordings can need several gigabytes of free space, and that opening an exported notebook is supported in the OneNote Windows app. Importing a notebook this way is now deprecated, so the export is an archive, not a migration tool.
On Windows desktop, File, Save a Copy is the other route: browse to a folder, name the copy and save. Microsoft documents it as the way to put a notebook into OneDrive, and the same Browse step reaches other folders too. When you only need to read the notes later, exporting pages as a PDF gives a fixed snapshot that later edits do not touch.
Moving notebooks
Moving a notebook without breaking it
Once you know where a notebook is stored, the temptation is to drag its folder somewhere tidier. Let OneNote do the move instead. Each section of a notebook is its own file, and when OneNote tries to sync a section and cannot find that file, Microsoft says a Misplaced Sections entry appears at the bottom of your notebook list. Moving files behind OneNote’s back is the quickest way to meet it.
To move a local notebook into the cloud, Microsoft’s steps are File, Save a Copy and browse to your OneDrive, or File, Share and pick the OneDrive you want. Microsoft also flags that notebooks on OneDrive use the latest OneNote file format; if your title bar says Compatibility Mode, File, Info, Settings, Properties shows the format and offers the conversion. Once a notebook is on OneDrive it follows you to the Mac, iPad and phone apps, which is the setup our OneNote for Mac guide assumes, and the OneNote tutorial shows how to organise notebooks, sections and pages once they are in one place. The OneNote hub collects the rest, and our OneNote templates drop into whichever notebook you settle on.
Found your notebooks somewhere odd, or settled on a backup routine that works? Tell us in the comments where yours turned up and how you keep a copy. Other readers’ setups are the most useful part of a page like this.
FAQ
Common questions, answered briefly
Where are OneNote files stored?
Are OneNote notebooks saved on my computer?
Where does OneNote save backups?
How do I restore a OneNote backup?
How do I download a copy of my OneNote notebook?
If your notebook is not where any of these answers say, start with File, Open in desktop OneNote: it lists every location the app knows about.
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