How do you stop Windows 11/10 files from going to and saving to OneDrive? If you have this question, this article will show you how to make Windows store or save documents locally on your hard disk drive, instead of saving them to OneDrive. And why would you need to do this? We all know that OneDrive is deeply integrated with Windows. Due to this, whenever you save your files or documents, they get saved under the hood of OneDrive.
Make Windows save Documents locally on the hard drive instead of OneDrive
If your computer is not connected to the Internet, your system will tend to save your documents locally – but if it has Internet access, it will save your content to OneDrive. Next, when this content is saved to OneDrive, and you lose the web connectivity, you won’t be able to open your documents since you’ll need to download them first.
However, you can right-click on any of the files inside the OneDrive section of File Explorer and select the Available offline option, to have the file open, when you don’t have the Internet.
If you don’t like your files listed under OneDrive heads, you can force or make your Windows save files locally to your hard drive. Here are multiple ways, you can configure this.
1] Manage Save location via OneDrive settings
- Open OneDrive Settings.
- Open the Auto Save tab
- Under Desktop, Documents and Pictures, from the drop-down menu, select the default Save location for each.
- Click OK and exit.
2] Make Windows save files to Hard Drive instead of OneDrive using Group Policy
1. In Windows Pro & Enterprise Editions, press Windows Key + R combination, type put gpedit.msc in Run dialog box, and hit Enter to open the Local Group Policy Editor.
2. In the left pane, navigate here:
Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> OneDrive
3. In the right pane of the above-shown window, look for the Setting named Save documents and pictures to the local PC by default which is showing Not Configured status. Double-click on the same to get this:
4. In the above-shown window, click Enabled and then click Apply followed by OK. Here’s the policy explanation so far:
This policy setting lets you select the local PC as the default save location. It does not prevent apps and users from saving files on OneDrive. If you enable this policy setting, files will be saved locally by default. Users will still be able to change the value of this setting to save to OneDrive by default. They will also be able to open and save files on OneDrive using the OneDrive app and file picker, and Windows Store apps will still be able to access OneDrive using the WinRT API. If you disable or do not configure this policy setting, users with a connected account will save files to OneDrive by default.
You may now close the Local Group Policy Editor and reboot to make changes effective.
3] Change default save location from OneDrive to Documents folder using Registry
If your edition of Windows does not have the Group Policy Editor, do the following:
1. Press Windows Key + R combination, type put regedit in Run dialog box and hit Enter to open the Registry Editor.
2. Navigate here:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Onedrive
3. In the right pane of the above-mentioned location, right-click in the blank space and select New -> DWORD Value. Name the newly created DWORD as DisableLibrariesDefaultToOneDrive. Double-click on the same DWORD to get this:
4. In the above-shown box, input the Value data as 1. Click OK. Finally, close the Registry Editor and reboot the machine to observe changes.
Your Windows will now store or save documents locally on your hard drive, instead of saving them to OneDrive.
Now read: What are these Brown Box Icons in left bottom corner of my files?
