Microsoft Word Saving Issues in Onedrive on my Android Tablet

Question

Microsoft Word Saving Issues in Onedrive on my Android Tablet

Vee 20

My word documents aren't being saved to my Onedrive properly. I'm having to save to my tablet device so that I have a backup copy and then retry saving to my Onedrive.

I can currently save in both locations, however I have to manually do it myself, compared to word doing this task automatically to my Onedrive.

My Onedrive and Word are both up to date.

Thank you,

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2 answers

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Answer 1

Anonymous

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Hi @Vee

Based on my testing on a non-Samsung Android device, as I did not have access to an Android tablet at the time, I was able to create a new Word document and save it to OneDrive successfully, and it worked as expected.

With that said, to better understand your experience, may I please clarify the following points?

When you mention the saving issue, do you mean that you are unable to create a new document and save it to OneDrive, or that changes made to an existing Word document stored in OneDrive are not syncing after editing?
Besides Word, have you noticed similar behavior with any other Office applications when using OneDrive on your device?

In the meantime, you may consider editing the document using Word for the web by following the steps below.

1/ Open any browser on your device and sign in to Word for the Web - Microsoft 365

2/ Select “Upload a file” or scroll to the “My Documents” section to open the desired Word document stored in OneDrive.

3/ Switch to the desktop view to enable editing by opening More options (represented by the three vertical dots) > Desktop site.

4/ After making changes, please check whether they sync correctly to OneDrive on your device.

I hope this provides additional insight. If you have any updates or further details to share, please feel free to do so.

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Anonymous

2026-05-01T09:13:20.8466667+00:00

Hi @Vee
Hope you're having a good day.

May I ask if there have been any updates since our last exchange?

Have you had a chance to review the responses shared so far?

I’d appreciate any updates you can provide.
Vee 20 Reputation points

2026-05-01T10:03:22.16+00:00

Hi Vergil,

In answer to your first question I can create a new document but it's the saving part that is having issues. Likewise to changes made to an existing Word document stored in OneDrive are not syncing after editing.

I have just had a couple chances today to work in word and the saving synchronize is very slow/ delayed in comparison to before these problems arose, my documents were saved continuously throughout working in the document. I will see how it goes tonight and tomorrow and get back to you.

Thank you
Anonymous

2026-05-01T11:43:19.0233333+00:00

Hi @Vee
Thank you for sharing. Please feel free to reach out whenever it is convenient for you.
Anonymous

2026-05-04T11:38:44.84+00:00

Hi @Vee
I’m reaching out to follow up, as it's been a little while since we last touched base.

I would greatly appreciate any updates you may be able to provide.

Thank you again for your time, and I look forward to hearing from you.
Vee 20 Reputation points

2026-05-06T00:47:27.57+00:00

Hi @Anonymous

Yes I'm still having the issue of my onedrive syncing with my word app to save my documents. It's inconsistent and most times I'm not sure if it saved or not, so I save a copy to my tablet as well.

In the word app file tap under 'open' it also comes up as "! 2 Files Need Your Attention" which is because the document I tried to save didn't successfully save in onedrive.

If there's any trouble shooting I can try that will help fix this, would be much apprecated.

Thanks
Anonymous

2026-05-06T11:52:17.9533333+00:00

Hi @Vergil-V
With the help of a colleague who has a personal tablet, I tried to replicate the same scenario. On their device, Word files were still saving normally to OneDrive.

To better understand your situation, may I kindly check whether you have had a chance to try some general troubleshooting steps, such as removing and re-adding your account, clearing the cache for both the OneDrive and Word apps, or reinstalling these applications?

If these steps do not help further, I would recommend reaching out to Microsoft support directly through the OneDrive app. You can do this by going to Home > Help and Feedback > Report a problem.

At the moment, I’m sorry that I’m not able to offer more advanced troubleshooting steps, but I hope this gives you some direction to help move forward.

Answer 2

On Word for Android, automatic saving to OneDrive depends on Autosave and where the file is stored.

To reduce manual saving and ensure documents are saved automatically to OneDrive on the Android tablet:

Confirm the file is created/opened from OneDrive
- When creating a new document, choose a OneDrive location when prompted for where to save.
- If the document was created on the device, move it to OneDrive:
  1. Tap File > Save As.
  2. Select the OneDrive account/location.
  3. Tap Save.
- Once stored in OneDrive, Word will autosave changes there.
Check that Autosave is turned on
- In Word on Android, open the document.
- Tap File > Save.
- Ensure the Auto Save (or Autosave) slider is set to On.
- When Auto Save is on and the file is in a cloud location (such as OneDrive or SharePoint), changes are saved automatically and periodically, even when offline; they sync when the device reconnects.
If preferring manual control
- If Autosave has been turned off, Word will show a Save button in the header and will not automatically save to OneDrive.
- To avoid having to save twice (device and OneDrive), keep a single master copy in OneDrive and rely on Autosave instead of maintaining a separate local backup.

If documents are still not updating in OneDrive after confirming they are stored there and Autosave is on, verify network connectivity and that the correct OneDrive account is selected when saving.

References: