Word Default Save Location

By default, Microsoft Word 2010 saves all your documents in the My Documents folder (Libraries > Documents > My Documents in Windows 7). While this is a good guess for Word to make, it might not be the best place to save every single document. For example, imagine that you know you will be creating 20 “specification” documents. In this case, it might make sense for you to create a new folder called “specifications” and save them all in there. It would therefore save you time if the default save location could be changed to this new folder. Fortunately for us, Word allows us to change the default save location.

Change Word’s Default Save Location

To change the default save location in Word, click the File tab > Options.

Word Options

Word Options allow you to customise the behaviour of Word to your own way of working. Click on Advanced and scroll down to the General section. Click on the File Locations button.

Word File Locations

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The File Locations window lets you specify the default location that certain types of file get saved to.

File Locations In Word

Make sure that documents is selected (click on it in the list) and then click Modify. When the Modify Location window opens, it looks very much like the Save As window and various other windows that you’ve probably seen before. Navigate to the location you’d like to use and then click OK.

Modify Location In Word

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Click OK in the File Locations window and then again in the Word Options window. The default save location will then be updated and any new documents you create will be saved in this new location by default. Of course you can change this location on the fly for each document you save.

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  1. [...] Default file location specifies where documents get saved by default. Categories: Uncategorized – Tags: autorecover, autosave [...]