Make Windows 8.1 save Documents locally, instead of OneDrive

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This article will show you how to make Windows 8.1 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 (formerly SkyDrive) is deeply integrated with Windows 8.1. Due to this, which whenever you save you files or documents in Windows 8.1, they get saved under the hood of OneDrive.

In case you’re not having your computer connected to the Internet, then 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 if you lose the web connectivity at the instant, 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 to be listed under OneDrive heads, you can force or make your Windows 8.1 save files locally to your hard drive. Here are the two ways, you can configure this:

Make Windows 8.1 save Documents locally on hard drive instead of OneDrive

Using Group Policy

1. In Windows 8.1 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 -> SkyDrive (for Windows 8.1)

Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> OneDrive (for Windows 8.1 Update)



3. In the right pane of 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 SkyDrive. 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 SkyDrive by default. They will also be able to open and save files on SkyDrive using the SkyDrive app and file picker, and Windows Store apps will still be able to access SkyDrive using the WinRT API. If you disable or do not configure this policy setting, users with a connected account will save files to SkyDrive by default.

You may now close the Local Group Policy Editor and reboot to make changes effective.

Using Registry

If your edition of Windows 8 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\Skydrive (for Windows 8.1)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Onedrive (for Windows 8.1 Update)



3. In the right pane of above mentioned location, right click in the blank space and select New -> DWORD Value. Name the newly created DWORD as DisableLibrariesDefaultToSkyDrive. 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 8.1 will now store or save documents locally on your hard drive, instead of saving them to OneDrive.

twc