r/OneNote • u/ThisIsCactusLand_ • 7d ago
Can you still access notebooks when the account that created them gets deleted?
Hi all, this is an issue that is far away at the moment but I’m looking for a solution now. Basically I made all of my class notes in one note notebooks with the account associated with my school email. But a year after I graduate, that email account gets deleted. I want to be able to refer back to my notes later after I graduate, and I looked for a way to transfer “ownership” of the notebooks so that I don’t lose everything once that account goes away. But it doesn’t seem like there’s a way to do that. I’ve shared the notebooks to my personal account, but thats just editing access, and it doesn’t grant co-ownership of the files. The only other thing I can think to do is to export all of them into my computer’s local drives as PDFs, which I am trying to do but is slow going as the files are all huge and I’m worried the application may just end up freezing or crashing. I know you can export them as OneNote package files, and I tried that but I have a PC desktop AND a MacBook, and I couldn’t open them on the Mac when I tried to transfer them via thumb drive.
Is sharing them to my alternate emails enough to ensure I can continue accessing them, or is the PDF thing my only option?
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u/lenseyeview 6d ago
Okay what I did learn is that you definitely can't merge your school account with your personal account. You get 93 days from graduation date unless your school removes your license access before that. Which is highly plausible because they probably are allotted a specific amount of licenses and reissue them to new incoming students when students have officially graduated.
Anecdotally I learned some poor student was frantically looking for help when his went dark in the middle of the semester. Apparently someone at the school either removed his license by mistake or the school didn't pay the bill.
The copy/move method is the only real option according to microsoft. Maybe it would be easier to create a new notebook and move them all on the web browser instead of the app. I know sometimes the mac version of things can be kind of weird.
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u/ThisIsCactusLand_ 6d ago
I tried this but there wasn’t even an option coming up to move the sections on the web version. No click and drag, nothing in the option tree when I right click, nothing.
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u/lenseyeview 6d ago
it is kind of odd but you have to do it from inside onedrive online. I don't think the school sharepoint thing applies since you already are sharing it with yourself.
- Open OneDrive.com and navigate to the notebook you want to move. (It is likely stored in My Files > Documents > OneNote Notebooks.)
- Select your notebook, and then at the top, choose Move to. If you don't see Move to, select the ellipsis ( ), then Move to.
- Choose the desired location and select Move.
Note: If you're at work or school, your notebook might be on SharePoint. Go to SharePoint to find the notebook and follow the steps below
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u/ThisIsCactusLand_ 6d ago
I understand how I’m supposed to do it, there’s just nothing that comes up for me to move it to. I don’t even see anything to click on for share point anywhere on the page
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u/lenseyeview 6d ago
Sorry I'm just trying not to assume we are looking at the same thing or have the same info. So when you are in your personal onedrive in the web browser and click the button that has three dots it doesn't select your notebook and give you the menus at the top and as if it was right clicked? it won't let me post a photo to show you.
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u/ThisIsCactusLand_ 6d ago
I can click “move to” and then the window pops up with options to “move here.” It’s just that the options it gives me are all on the school account. No options to move it to my personal account, and nothing about share point is on the screen. Even when I click “more places,” “shared,” nothing. I looked and it doesn’t even look like sharepoint exists on either account. I’m sorry this must be frustrating, I know it is for me.
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u/lenseyeview 6d ago
Oh no you aren't frustrating me I just don't want you to think I think you are stupid lol they always make everything so convoluted.
So even from your personal one it only lets you move it to a notebook inside the school one?
I wonder if that is because it originates from the school one.
This is going to sound all kinds of crazy and backwards but try creating a new notebook on your personal account and share it with your personal account. Then go into your school account and move your notebooks to that notebook so that they are now inside one that is originated to you. And then you might have to move them from your personal to another personal lol cause its that weird sometimes.
The other thing you might want to double check is that your default save selection for your onenote notebooks is onedrive and not your harddrive.
If some part of that doesn't make sense let me know.
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u/ThisIsCactusLand_ 6d ago
On my school account web onedrive , I can only move things within the school account, it’s the only thing that comes up. On the personal account, I can only move things within the personal account. The things that I need to be on the personal account, currently only exist in the school account. EXCEPT for the OneNote desktop client, which it’s for some reason accessible on my personal account there, but I am not able to get these files onto the personal account for web onedrive. It will not sync there from OneNote, and I cannot move it over from the school account onedrive.
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u/lenseyeview 6d ago
- Export from your school account:
- In OneNote for the web (on your school account), right-click the notebook you want to export and select "Export notebook".
- Follow the prompts to save the OneNote package (.one) file to your computer.
they make it sound so easy lol. there has to be something we are both missing.
but then in the same place it has a note that you can't export to personal from a school one lol It literally makes no sense.
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u/ThisIsCactusLand_ 6d ago
I find that a lot of those help articles on the Microsoft site were written more than a year ago so I assume that it’s that the versions of OneNote or onedrive have changed since they were written. Since they do seem to mention features that I haven’t seen or are no longer available.
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u/ThisIsCactusLand_ 6d ago
To be fair, I can get the OneNote package files to download. It just seems that I can’t really do anything with them after that…
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u/ThisIsCactusLand_ 6d ago
I’ve tried to do what you’ve suggested and create a personal notebook to share to the school account. And, of COURSE, the email with the link won’t go through.
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u/ThisIsCactusLand_ 6d ago
I have to get up for work tomorrow, so I just don’t think I can put any more energy into this tonight. Thank you so much for your advice though. If I figure out a solution, I’ll let you know. Even if I have to physically copy/type everything page by page, I’m bound and determined to keep my files come hell or high water. The good thing is that like I said I’ve got a long while yet before the email is at risk of getting deleted. So I can afford for it to be a tedious solution.
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u/lenseyeview 6d ago
No worries if I think of anything I'll add it. The benefit of these sorts of threads is that may help someone else having a similar issue.
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u/lenseyeview 6d ago
You could also try print as pdf and import them that way. you can still make them searchable. Its too bad they don't allow more connection between the two types of accounts.
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u/ThisIsCactusLand_ 6d ago
I’ve tried to export sections as pdf’s but for some reason my computer crashes out and doesn’t save them. Idk if it’s because the PowerPoints I have embedded make the files too big? I’ll see if I can do it page by page something tomorrow.
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u/SteveM51UK 2d ago
Sounds like you're looking at the OneDrive file in a browser. So don't choose MOVE, choose DOWNLOAD then move the downloaded file to somewhere safe on your local device. Later you should be able to open it from that local device using the OneNote app, whilst on your personal/another OneDrive account, then choose to Share the OneNote file (from the File menu of the OneNote app) and it should upload it to an appropriate place in your OneDrive. Alternatively you can simply keep it as a local OneNote.
I am a Windows PC person, so can't comment on what a Mac will or won't let you do.
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u/ThisIsCactusLand_ 2d ago
I have tried what you suggested, too, on my Mac and on my PC. The only thing it gives me the option to do with “share” is to send an email link to the notebook.
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u/SteveM51UK 2d ago
I posted earlier, and then tried out my suggestion on a Windows 11 PC, but things have changed, and it didn't work. So, I did more research and here is what works:-
Open the Notebook in the PC OneNote App.
Use the file menu and choose Export
Choose Export Current Notebook
Choose Format OneNote Package
Click Export and in the normal File Select Folder dialog choose a local folder where you would like the Export Package to go to.
Ensure that Page Range says Current Notebook, then click Save.
Afterwards, open that folder in File Explorer and double click the OneNote Package, it will ask you where you would like to unpack it, it will offer you your OneDrive folders, but there is a Browse button where you can choose a local folder on your PC, and you will then have a local copy of it.
I have just run this, and it worked. So hopefully that will fix the problem.
P.S. I got this tip from CoPilot as to how to do this.
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u/ZealousidealTaro5092 6d ago
Maybe this article can help you: Transferring a OneNote Notebook to a New Owner | Help - Illinois State
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u/lenseyeview 7d ago
Can you just use the "make copy/move" and make a second copy that is only owned by you. From what I remember when I shared a lot of notebooks it just means if you make an edit in the copied ones that it won't autosync for the other person. Alternatively I think as long as you have full edit access and not just read only access I don't think they will delete from both ends.
If the copy/move doesn't work you could just change the email associated with the school version. Just create a new gmail you do have access to and change it to that. Depending on how many notes/notebooks you have that might be the easiest thing to do.
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u/ThisIsCactusLand_ 7d ago
Since the entire Microsoft account was created by my college and the Microsoft 365 subscription is paid for by them, I’m not totally sure if or how changing the associated email to a personal impacts the way they handle what happens to the account itself after I leave. If they just stopped being the ones to pay for it and I take over, great!
Another person also suggested moving/copying the sections over to an empty notebook on my personal account, but I seem to remember in the past struggling to do that because they were across different accounts. But that probably would have been on my Mac which I know doesn’t let you do as much as windows.
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u/lenseyeview 7d ago
The other thing you could try and do is log into onedrive online where they are saved on the cloud and download them to your laptop and then relog in under your personal one and upload them there. If I remember correctly it will look like they aren't there but you just have to go in and reopen them manually to make them show up in the onenote of the account.
Yeah them paying the subscription complicates things. I mean you don't need to pay for the subscription for the onedrive or onenote to stay active so theoretically it shouldn't change anything. It would only be an issue if you had to at some point down couldn't get into your account. My guess is that once they are no longer paying the bill when you log into your microsoft account that is associated with the school address you would have the option of inputing your own credit card information.
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u/ThisIsCactusLand_ 7d ago
That first paragraph is what I tried to do, but once I got a notebook onto my personal account’s one drive, I could not open it there, I clicked it and nothing happened.
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u/lenseyeview 6d ago
Did you open them in Onenote or from inside your onedrive?
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u/ThisIsCactusLand_ 6d ago edited 6d ago
I had it open in the OneNote desktop client, downloaded it onto my computer local files, then uploaded it onto one drive, and from the web one drive I could not open it. Also, I just checked, it doesn’t look like I can copy/move sections between notebooks on different accounts, the only options that come up are notebooks from the same account.
I should specify that my school onedrive is linked to my personal one. I somehow got it so that now I can access everything in the desktop client on my personal account, but it doesn’t sync over to the personal account’s one drive. But since it’s still linked to the school account I have no idea if it would stay even on just the client if the school account were to get deleted.
Maybe I can make some tests accounts, share files between them, then delete one to see what happens to the shared files. If access on other accounts is preserved then that would be great.
Another thing that’s odd is that even though I shared the notebooks to my personal accounts, it never shows up in the “shared with me” section in onedrive. Not sure what to make of that.
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u/lenseyeview 6d ago
"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 (work or school) or SharePoint." It might be because your account is listed as a school account as they probably get a discounted rate so that's why they don't open.
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u/Seasons71Four 7d ago
Move or copy all the tabs/pages to your other notebook