Downloading a local copy of One Note from Office 365 Online

I have a One Note notebook saved through Office 365 Online. I would like to download a local copy but am having trouble. I've tried going to One Drive and downloading it through there, but it downloads a zip with a text file saying it cannot be downloaded. How can I get a local copy of a one note notebook I have on office online?

9 Answers 9

You said you downloaded from onedrive but there's also an option on onenote online, so, for now, I'll treat it as if you had only tried onedrive but not the other (Microsoft is confusing, am I right?).

Onenote online provides an option to export onenote notebooks, but it is well hidden for some weird reason.

1. Go to https://www.onenote.com/notebooks and sign in with your Microsoft credentials.
2. You will see your notebooks. Right click the one you want to export.
3. There is an option Export notebook . Click that.
4. A popup window appears and you can click export to download locally (it also lets you choose where to save it).

Hope this helps, although I'm a little late.

Doesn't work on Mac if you are using One Drive version of it. This post superuser.com/a/1318304/362814 has useful suggestion if you happen to have a Windows Machine along with you.

@ElectricLlama I'm using chrome and I see no problem right clicking on any of the notebooks I have. Maybe try another browser if it doesn't work?

From the support article linked in the answer: "Note: Exporting and importing notebooks through OneNote for the web is only available for notebooks stored on personal OneDrive accounts, not for notebooks stored on OneDrive for Business or SharePoint."

Just to add that there is a distinction between OneDrive for personal use, and for corporate use. Business accounts do not allow to download notes in any way, none of the posts on this page were able to overcome this limitation.

From Microsoft help pages on OneNote app:

Exporting and importing notebooks through OneNote for the web is only available for notebooks stored on personal OneDrive accounts, not for notebooks stored on OneDrive for Business or SharePoint. For information about exporting notebooks to PDF files from OneNote 2016 for Windows, see Export notes from OneNote as a PDF.

As pointed out by Mauricio, if you have an Office for Business subscription, the option 'Export Notebook' does not appear. This is most likely relevant to the author, who comments that there is no option for export. Those concerned by this may wish to vote for backup options to be added to OneNote for Mac here: onenote.uservoice.com/forums/327165-onenote-for-mac/suggestions/…

Why does it not apply to the author? There's no indication of whether it's personal or not, only that they can 't download it. This is the most correct answer so far

Open OneNote, then open the OneNote file in the online location. Then click File > Export > Notebook and export the notebook to a local folder.

This copy will no longer be in sync with the online copy of the notebook.

Yes, it works. You need OneNote for desktop. And the exported one will be a single file. When you open it, it needs to be extracted first. But to be honest, it is quite slow and tedious. Not a good experience.

Here's what I do for my class notebooks (stored on OneDrive for business). This works for Windows 10, not sure which update made it possible, but I've been doing it for at least 2 years:

1. make sure both your personal onedrive and onedrive for business are syncing to your computer through the trey apps.
2. in OneNote 2016 (not the UWP app) make sure your notebook is fully synced; says 'up to date' and is not open on any other computer or app.
3. right click on the notebook title, select properties, select 'change location'
4. pick a location in your personal onedrive. This creates an extra copy, it does not move the original. I suggest renaming the personal copy on onedrive so it's distinguishable easily.
5. Give it time and make sure it is done and didn't experience sync issues

You could also do the 'export' from OneNote 2016, but my large notebooks tend to fail.

FYI you can still download OneNote 2016, just google that and follow the links.

I too was struggling with it for a long time(i wanted a pdf copy), at last i got it-

1. Open the desktop app view of office 365.
2. Click on the button with 3dots in the upper extreme right of the screen and select print.
3. A new window opens up, now select the option you want(3 given-includes pdf,XPS doc writer and onenote) on the left just below where printer is written.
4. Click on Print and select a location of your choice where you want to save.

This may or may not be the issue the original poster had but I'm posting this here to help anyone else.

This is with regards to the default online notebook you get when running OneNote. There is no export option and you can't find the file anywhere.

I needed to copy my notebook to a new account. This is what I did

1. Go to -my.sharepoint.com
2. Pick My Files
3. In the root you'll find your notebook file
4. Right click/open in app. You need to log in and stuff
5. Hopefully your existing company notebook is open. Now you can right click on each tab and copy to the new company notebook

For some reason, SharePoint online hides the ability to download the contents of a One Note file.

I have no idea why they do that but they do.

But you can still download the file with a special method.

• Go to the folder that contains the workbook in SharePoint Online document library

And open the one note file:

Each Section in your notebook equates to a .one file. We need to get the OneNote section filename. To do this, right click on the section and click Copy Link to Section.

Paste the link in a text editor and it will look like this: https://mysharepointtenant.sharepoint.com/_layouts/15/Doc.aspx?sourcedoc=&action=edit&wd=target(Untitled Section.one|211abf0a-d9b5-498d-a9bf-e8c8c1545c7b%2F)&wdorigin=717

You can extract the filename from target wrapper, in this case Untitled Section.one .

You now have what you need to download the one note file.

Example in my case:

https://mysharepointtenant.sharepoint.com/Shared Documents/MySuperCoolNotebook/Untitled Section.one

make sure if there is a sub-folder you are including it in that final url. these steps definitely work for the situation I have. so there's just something slightly different with yours that is causing the issue

I finally found a completely localized solution that does not require onedrive or any cloud sync. Note: My OneNote version: 16.0.15601.20680 thats part of the Microsoft Office 365 for enterprise suite.

Steps to Export your current notebook as single onenote pkg file ( .onepkg ):

1. Create a Backup folder on your C Drive to store the .onepkg files. Say C:\Bak\
2. Click on your notebook that you want to export. Then from File menu pick export
3. Under "Export current" section Choose Notebook
4. Under the "Select Format" option choose 1st option - OneNote Package(*.onepkg)
5. Click Export and now it will offer you to pick a folder to save the file under.
6. Navigate to C:\Bak folder and click save
7. If you open C:\Bak in file explorer it will contain a single file with ext .onepkg.
8. Repeat for each notebook in your Onenote app.

Steps to import the .onepkg file in a new PC using OneNote:

1. Create a Folder C:\MyNotebooks on your new PC. This is where the .onepkg will be imported to.
2. Copy the C:\Bak folder to the new PC using a USB drive or mapping a folder.
3. Open one note and click File - open.
4. Find the browse option (under other locations)
5. Navigate to the folder C:\Bak
6. Just above the open button there is a dropdown to select file type. Pick OneNote Single file Package.
7. Now select the .onepkg file
8. Click open and it will open the "Unpack notebook" dialog box where it will present you with the option to rename the notebook and also change its default location to a drive on your local PC.
9. Navigate (using browse button) to C:\MyNotebooks and click on Create. And you should now see your notebook open on the new pc.
10. Onenote will automatically create a new sub-folder under C:\MyNotebooks and it will have a bunch of files (.one. onetoc2 etc . ). This folder is portable ! You can just copy that folder to a another PC and open it using File-Open menu. No need to export.

Verify:

1. Click on File --> Info and it should show you the locations for each Notebook on your PC. Ensure that it is pointing to the new folder: C:\MyNotebooks.