Charles has explained how to set the local drive as the default save location in the Office applications.

If you want to stop synchronizing with OneDrive completely, unlink your PC from OneDrive. See the "Unlink OneDrive from your computer" section of the article Turn off, disable, or uninstall OneDrive - Microsoft Support.

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Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

Thanks a lot for your help!! It took me a while to find the OneDrive settings icon (had to start in the "hidden icons" area, but finally found it and "unlinked." I felt better the moment I "unlinked"


Purely for my edification, can you tell me why I would or should WANT to be linked with OneDrive? I'm sure I must have clicked on something that gave (whoever) permission to copy my files to the cloud. I would rather it had been something to opt into rather than having to opt out.

To synchronize with OneDrive is the default when you sign in to your PC with a Microsoft account. Of course, using cloud storage does offer some extra safety, because you are not 100% dependent on your local drive. But the main thing is likely that Microsoft want to promote their online storage.

Personally, I prefer to save locally. That way, if something goes wrong, and I lose data, I have nobody else to blame than myself. :-)

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Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

You did not do anything to set this.
Microsoft really wants to sell everyone on OneDrive. They set the default for 365 to put everything there.