Default "Save As" location in Microsoft Office on a Mac

Anonymous
2019-02-28T15:24:52+00:00

When I open a file in Microsoft Office on my Mac, I typically do a "Save As" to append a version number to the file name.  However, by default the "Save As" location is NOT the folder where I opened the file (which is typical behavior in Microsoft Office on Windows...and for that matter any other application on the Mac).  Instead, the default folder is the location of the last file I SAVED in Microsoft Office.  This is extremely annoying, not typical or desired behavior, and is both baffling to me as to why it does this or how I can change to the expected behavior (if open file XYZ from folder ABC, the default "Save As" folder should be ABC).  This is literally annoying to the point that I'm ready to just ditch Microsoft Office on a Mac and move to Pages / Numbers / Keynote.  If anyone knows how to change (or why Microsoft is using this approach) please help me...

Mac OS:  Mojave 10.14.3

Microsoft Office for Mac:  Version 16.22

Posting this to Office -> Word -> Mac topic, though the issue happens to be the same across all Office products (Excel and Powerpoint).

Note, I do use OneDrive, though I just work from local directories and let OneDrive sync to the cloud.

Also note, I posted this question to a Mac forum, and everyone insisted this is a Microsoft issue as the setting for the "Save As" dialog are set by the program you are using (and I confirmed in applications like Pages, Numbers, and Keynote the behavior is correct i.e. as desired and done everywhere else...the default "Save As" is the folder where you opened the file).

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2019-11-08T18:28:21+00:00

It appears I MAY have fixed the problem... I just turned off "Files-on-demand" and "File Collaboration" in my OneDrive preferences and "Save As" defaults to the current file's directory instead of the directory that I most recently saved to.

Can anyone else experiencing this problem confirm that this works as a fix?

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John Korchok 236.1K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
2019-10-11T16:00:00+00:00

Rena left out some details. She's referring to the hidden Library folder in your user folder. To open it, hold down the Option key while clicking on the Go menu and choose Library. Look inside the window that opens for the folders she cited.

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  1. Anonymous
    2019-07-18T03:57:41+00:00

    Hi Paul,

    Sorry to hear that you encounter the same issue. I will try to help you with this.

    The File location settings mentioned above is: Word > Preferences > Personal Settings > File Locations. There was a setting to set a default file save location in Office for Mac 2011. But it is not available anymore in Office 365 for Mac. For further information about this, you can refer to this thread. John has explained clearly about that. So, Office 365 for Mac should remember the file last saved location by default.

    I tested again in the latest version 16.27, try to test both files saved in Desktop and OneDrive local sync folder, but I still can’t reproduce the same issue. When I save as them, the prompt window always shows the correct location where they saved last time.

    I would first suggest you try to remove the preferences or cache files to check whether any issue is caused by corrupted preferences or caches. To do this, you can

    1.       move the file to the desktop: ~Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.Word.plist.

    2.       move the file to the desktop: ~Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.Office.plist.

    3.       move the folder to the desktop: ~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.word

    Then re-launch your Word app to see the result. If the steps above don’t fix the issue, that means the issue is not caused by these files. You can move them back to their original locations.

    If the issue persists, please kindly provide us the information below for our further investigation:

    1.       Please provide us the client version information. You can go to Word > About Word to check that.

    2.       Please provide us the OS version.

    3.       Does the issue occur to any files saved in any locations?

    4.       Where does the save as location point to? Does it always point to a specific location?

    Best Regards,

    Rena

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  2. Anonymous
    2019-07-22T21:02:47+00:00

    Hi Paul,

    Do you still have the issue after trying the steps above?

    Thanks,

    Rena

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  3. Anonymous
    2019-07-24T21:06:05+00:00

    I have been having a similar issue for over a year now. When using "Save As" function, the initial directory pulled by the Save As function is the last directory used for saving, and NOT the directory in which the current file being worked on actually resides. 

    I performed the procedures as described and now I am presented with something even worse than before, now the dialogue tries to save my files via OneDrive, rather than saving locally and having them merely synced. 

    Also, this behavior does not cause the save as file location to be something useful or intelligent (like the current working directory). No it tries to use some crazy, nonsensical "recent" directories, which is even worse than what I had before. Hopefully I can copy those files back off the desktop to just go back to the broken way that it worked before.

    This persistent problem causes me no end of headaches.

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