
Note: If you prefer your files to open in the online application, no action needs to be taken. Now any file you open from Outlook, OneDrive or SharePoint will open by default in desktop apps This should now show a box labelled ‘Open supported hyperlinks to Office files in Office desktop apps’.

Scroll down to find ‘Link Handling’ in the options.ĥ. Click on ‘Advanced’ in the left-hand menu.Ĥ. Go to ‘Options’ located at the bottom of the coloured tab.ģ. Click ‘File’ in Word, Excel or PowerPoint.Ģ. If you would like to open Office files in desktop apps by default, just follow these steps:ġ. Open Office files in Desktop Apps By Default The good news is there’s the option to amend their default settings. Having to keep flicking between versions can be incredibly frustrating if working across multiple files. So if your Word document needs a lot of editing or you want to access the more advanced formulas in Excel, it’s typically much easier to work from Microsoft’s desktop apps. Word users will also find that more complex formatting will render very differently between the web and desktop app. However, the Office web applications are much simpler, meaning not all of the features are at your disposal. The default browser experience opens your files up quickly, allows you to make changes fast, and even saves the changes in SharePoint and OneDrive automatically. What’s the problem with the browser experience?

This means that users who prefer to edit their files in their desktop apps have to manually select this option every time they open a file. Here’s how to open Office files In desktop apps by default.Īs more and more organisations shift to using OneDrive and SharePoint as cloud document management solutions, the issue with how Office files open has become more of an issue.īy default, when you click on Excel, Word or PowerPoint files in one of these online platforms, they open up in the browser version of the app.

How files are stored in Outlook, OneDrive or SharePoint open has been a surprisingly hot topic among Microsoft users.
