Mac OneNote ver. 16.60 "Backups" does NOT show in Preferences

Anonymous
2022-04-15T23:57:37+00:00

PROBLEM

With the release of version 16.60, the Mac OneNote development team stated in the Mac App Store:

...Starting now, your notes on Mac will be automatically backed up on your Mac and not just in the cloud." "...go to OneNote preferences and select Backups. From there, you can customize your backup preferences and access your backed up notes."

The problem is there is no "Backups" section in preferences.

MY ACTIONS

I have uninstalled and reinstalled OneNote multiple times. Rebooted. Signed out and back into my Microsoft account. Nothing I have done has revealed the new Backups section.

I do not know if it makes any difference, but I am a license holder for Microsoft 365 Family edition of which OneNote is a part. I originally downloaded OneNote from the Microsoft site. Today, when I could not find "Backups," I uninstalled OneNote, and re-installed from the Mac App Store; that did not work either.

FOR THE RECORD

I'm a fanatical note-taker, organizational, planner, outliner type of person; OneNote is the best tool I have ever used. I have used OneNote daily since it was first released on Windows. I have gladly moved to Mac and continued to use the Mac version of OneNote. I have also regularly tried other note apps to see if there is anything better. By "better" what I actually mean is if there is another notes app as excellent as OneNote AND allows me to save my data locally. There has only been one contender and it is hardly supported anymore.

QUESTION

Does anybody have a solution?

Microsoft 365 and Office | OneNote | For home | MacOS

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous
2022-05-25T13:51:48+00:00

I am glad to report I received the Backups feature.

If you haven't yet received the Backups feature...

I suspect you will receive it in the near future. I wouldn't waste time to determine the cause of delay or to force the feature to appear.

  • April 16th, 2022, I saw in the App Store, the Devs announced the new Backups feature available
  • May 24th, 2022, I received the Backups feature
  • I have no idea why it took that long
  • I tried every tactic I know to force the Backups feature to appear--nothing worked. If it matters to you, look back in these posts and you'll find a post in which I listed everything I tried.

Backups works...

  • The Backups feature works quickly and well
  • I have not yet tried to restore data; I'll report my findings when I try it

Hope for the future...

Assuming the restore feature works properly, then my only hope for future abilities is to allow users their own local destination for backups. As of now, backups are forced to Microsoft's preset location, which is:

/Users/*your user name*/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.onenote.mac/Data/Library/Application Support/Microsoft User Data/OneNote/15.0/Backup

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-05-02T13:49:06+00:00

    No, the Web based export was killed (intentionally or not) for all users.

    Macs are not the centre of the world 😋

    Bernd

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-05-02T08:11:15+00:00

    I have exactly the same issue. 2017 iMac running Monterey 12.3.1. I have Office 365 Family and have been backing up for a year using the web version but the facility suddenly disappeared about 1 April 2022. I eventually found this was because a new version of Mac ON (16.60) was launched with a local backup feature. I have reinstalled but Backup does not appear in the Preferences menu.

    I would be grateful for some assistance as I have not been able to backup for a month.

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-04-30T12:28:08+00:00

    I’m afraid that I also have the same problem on an Intel mac, and I have also tested this on a M1 mac with a fresh install.

    Thanks,

    Hiren

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-04-25T03:23:13+00:00

    Wow. From borderline elation tonight when I saw in App Store that this feature has (finally) been added -- I immediately downloaded the update on both my Macs: an intel iMac running Catalina 10.15.7 and a Mac Studio rocking the latest Monterey (12.3.1) -- to exasperation when "backups" was nowhere to be found in either of my updated 16.60 (I checked and triple-checked) OneNote apps.

    Is this new feature working for anyone?

    Like others here, I'm a great admirer of OneNote and use it religiously on all my desktop and mobile devices. I've also learned through bitter experience that you can never have enough backup options for your priceless data, and that the Cloud can sometimes sync errors ... or disasters ... leaving you with no reliable backup other than a local one.

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