The easier OneNote. Mostly.

Where they actually live

Despite the name “personal”, these notebooks sit inside your school OneDrive, in a folder called Notebooks. The OneNote app treats them as personal because you own them; OneDrive treats them as files in your drive. Either lens is correct.

When the school deactivates your account, both views of those notebooks vanish together. The retention window is the same as for the rest of your OneDrive.

The clean path

Option 1 — Export from OneNote (works, slow)

Open OneNote (desktop), find each personal notebook in the left-hand list, right-click > Notebook > Export Notebook. Save as .onepkg or as separate .one files per section. This works because you own the notebook.

Repeat for every personal notebook. Fine if you have one or two; tedious if you have ten.

Option 2 — Download the OneDrive folder

Navigate to OneDrive > Notebooks in the web client and download the folder as a zip. The contents are the raw .one files that make up each notebook, plus a few metadata files. OneNote can import them back. This is faster than per-notebook export but you'll need to know which files belong to which notebook.

Option 3 — mydocs.school

Sign in once. The dashboard groups every personal notebook with its sections, and the “Download everything” button bundles them with your class notebooks and OneDrive in a single zip with a sensible folder structure. The advantage isn't saving a few clicks; it's having one consistent archive you can find later.

The two traps

1. Recent unsaved changes. OneNote autosaves to the cloud, but the desktop and mobile apps can buffer changes for a few seconds. Before exporting, open each notebook in the desktop app and let it finish syncing. The status bar at the bottom shows when it's done.

2. Shared notebooks. If you shared a personal notebook with a friend or teacher, you still own it — exporting works. If a friend shared their notebook with you, you don't own it, and the export path is theirs not yours. Worth checking the notebook's ownership in Manage Permissions if you're not sure.

After you leave

Open each .one file by signing into OneNote with a personal Microsoft account, creating a new notebook, and using File > Open to import the section. The pages, embedded files, ink layers and structure all come through intact.

Common questions

Where do personal OneNote notebooks live in a school account?

Inside your school OneDrive, under /Notebooks. Microsoft calls them personal notebooks because you created them — but they're stored on the school's tenant, on the school's licence. When the account closes, they go with it.

Can I move them to my personal Microsoft account?

Yes, but not directly. The OneNote app won't sync a notebook to a different account in one step. You either export to .one and re-import into the new account, or use OneNote's 'Open' from a downloaded .one file and let it create a fresh notebook on the personal account.

What does mydocs.school give me?

Raw .one files for each section of each personal notebook, packaged in the same zip as your class notebooks and OneDrive. Open them in OneNote (any version) by importing the section into a new personal notebook.