Export and import onenote notebooks

No matter what version of OneNote you use, you can download a copy of any of your OneNote notebooks to your PC or Mac — either as a backup or to upload its contents to another account.

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. For information about exporting notebooks to PDF files from OneNote 2016 for Windows, see Export notes from OneNote as a PDF.

Export a OneNote notebook

To download a notebook from OneNote to your computer, do the following:

1. In any modern Web browser, go to OneNote for the web.

   Tip: Exporting notebooks is not currently supported in Windows Internet Explorer. We recommend using Microsoft Edge on Windows 10, or any other modern browser in older versions of Windows.

2. Enter your credentials for the Microsoft account containing the notebook you want to download. (Skip this step if you're already signed in.)

3. Under My Notebooks, right-click (PC) or Control-click (Mac) the name of the notebook that you want to export, and then click Export notebook.

4. On the screen that opens, click Export.

5. Follow your browser's prompts to save the file in the location you choose.

Tip: If the notebook you're exporting is very large or contains a large number of image or file attachments, it could take a long time to download your content. Make sure you have enough space on your hard drive to complete the download.

Each downloaded notebook is saved to your hard drive in Zip file format. If you want to later import a downloaded notebook, you'll need to first unzip its notebook folder from the Zip file, and then import the folder to OneNote for the web.

Import a OneNote notebook

To import a notebook to OneNote that you've previously downloaded, do the following:

1. Unzip the folder found in the file you previously downloaded (see "Export a OneNote notebook" earlier in this article). This unzipped folder is your notebook folder.

2. In any modern Web browser, go to the OneNote Notebook Importer.

   Tip: Importing notebooks is not currently supported in Windows Internet Explorer. We recommend using Microsoft Edge on Windows 10, or any other modern browser in older versions of Windows.

3. On the screen that opens, click Import.

4. On your computer, navigate to the location of your notebook folder (see Step 1), click to select it, and then click Open to import it.

Tip: If the import process begins but then appears not to finish, your OneDrive account might be low on available space. Manually delete any unnecessary files from your OneDrive storage (including any failed notebook uploads) and then try importing the notebook folder again.

Troubleshooting

If you're running into any issues while exporting or importing your notebooks, try the suggestions below.

My notebook download doesn't seem to finish

Over time, notebooks can significantly increase in size, especially if you use OneNote to collect embedded documents, image scans, PDFs, or video and audio clips as part of your notes. Before attempting to download large notebooks, make sure you have several gigabytes (GB) of available space on your computer's hard drive. If a download is interrupted because you ran out of storage, you'll need to restart the download again after you've recovered enough hard drive space.

My download contains only an "errors.txt" file, but no notebook folder

Whenever a notebook is downloaded successfully, it is saved as a Zip file that contains a folder with the same name as the notebook. In rare cases, it's possible that a downloaded Zip file doesn't contain any notebook folders but only shows a file called errors.txt. When this happens, something went wrong during the export process. To troubleshoot this issue, open the errors.txt file from the downloaded Zip file in a text editor and read its contents for more specific information.

OneNote doesn't recognize the notebook I'm trying to import

If OneNote rejects a notebook file that you're trying to import, it's likely that you're trying to upload the original Zip file that was created when you previously downloaded the notebook. To solve this issue, double-click to open the original Zip file, and then extract (copy) the notebook folder from the Zip file to any location on your hard drive (for example, the desktop). When the notebook folder has been successfully saved outside of its Zip file, you can import the folder into OneNote.

I got an error message saying I don't have enough space to import my notebook to OneDrive

If your OneDrive account is low on available space, manually delete any unnecessary files from your OneDrive storage (including any failed notebook uploads) and then try importing the notebook folder again.

I got an error message saying my notebook is too large to export

Please move portions of your notebook into separate, smaller notebooks and then try exporting these smaller notebooks instead.

I'm still having trouble and need help

If you've tried the suggested troubleshooting tips in this article but are still having trouble exporting or importing your OneNote notebooks, please report your in the OneNote forums on Microsoft Answers so we can investigate the cause and help you find a solution. Thank you!

Important: If your exported Zip file contained an errors.txt file, please be sure to include the information it contains.