Excel changed link location

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Excel changed link location

Ben Mawson 0

I have a workbook with hundreds of links. Recently Excel changed all of these links to read from C:\user\myname\roaming.........andonandon. The file names are the same but as the files don't exist in this location, this broken all the links.

My question is how do I change the source data back to the original in 1 batch?

If this can't be done, how do I charge Microsoft for the time this takes to change each link individually? Deadly serious - Microsoft need to answer this

This has happened because I cannot work online, either Onedrive or sharepoint. This means autosave is off for my workbook saved on my laptop hard drive. I recently turn off autosave to onedrive and set-up to save my files elsewhere just in case Excel crashes (which it does, often, and cause all kinds of version control issues in the recovered files). This SHOULD NOT HAVE CHANGED MY SOURCE LINKS: THIS IS VERY POOR THINKING FROM MICROSOFT

There is no practical reason for this but a commercial decision by Microsoft to force all users onto onedrive. i.e. Microsoft caused this and the time taken for me to fix is a cost to my business. One drive is not feasible for my business, why should I receive less functionality. One way does not fit all and it is extremely poor business sense to assume this.

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Answer 1

What you’re seeing is Excel rewriting links to a different base path, usually after a change in how the file was opened, saved, or cached locally (especially with anything that touched OneDrive/Office “recent files” or AutoSave behavior). It’s not intended to “force” anything, but it can break large models like yours, and fixing it one-by-one would be unreasonable. You can fix this in batch and repoint all external links at once.

Open your workbook, go to Data → Edit Links (this only appears if Excel detects external links). In that window you’ll see a list of all linked source files. Select one, then use “Change Source” and point it to the correct file location. If multiple links point to the same incorrect base path, you can select multiple entries and change them together. If all links share the same structure and only the root folder changed, Excel will often update all matching links automatically once you point one correctly.

If Excel doesn’t group them properly, try Find and Replace on the formulas themselves. Press Ctrl+H, then search for the incorrect path fragment like:

C:\Users\myname\AppData\Roaming\...

and replace it with the correct base path, for example:

D:\YourActualFolder\...

Make sure “Look in: Formulas” is selected, then replace all. This updates hundreds of links in one pass.

If some links are defined names instead of direct formulas, go to Formulas → Name Manager and apply the same idea there, either manually or using the same replace approach if you copy them into a temporary sheet.

If the links are embedded in Power Query connections, go to Data → Queries & Connections, open each query, and update the source path in Advanced Editor. If many queries share the same root, you can copy one corrected M expression across them.

If you want something more controlled, a short VBA script can rewrite every external reference in seconds:

Sub FixLinks()
    Dim ws As Worksheet
    Dim c As Range
    Dim oldPath As String
    Dim newPath As String

    oldPath = "C:\Users\myname\AppData\Roaming\..."
    newPath = "D:\YourActualFolder\..."

    For Each ws In ThisWorkbook.Worksheets
        For Each c In ws.UsedRange
            If c.HasFormula Then
                c.Formula = Replace(c.Formula, oldPath, newPath)
            End If
        Next c
    Next ws
End Sub

Run that once and it will sweep the entire workbook.

On the “charging Microsoft” point, you can either raise a support ticket (if you have a business or enterprise license), report this through Excel’s feedback channel, or restore a previous version of the workbook if you have backups.

If the above response helps answer your question, remember to "Accept Answer" so that others in the community facing similar issues can easily find the solution. Your contribution is highly appreciated.

hth

Marcin

Ben Mawson 0 Reputation points

2026-04-08T14:59:19.1966667+00:00

thank you. I tried changing 1 of the links but it won't do it (source stays the same). I'll try your other approaches.

It clearly IS "intended" to force users onto One drive by making the long established alternatives a pain to use; e.g. "Back up" to onedrive actually means "migrate" all your files to onedrive (so I bought an external SSD to back up to) and there are many postings on this subject alone. This is an overt objective of Microsoft as its a subscription service. Profit before customers.

If I'm misunderstanding, I'd love to know why I can't autosave a file to my hard drive as easily as I can if it's on one drive? Autosave was a feature added pre-one drive and then taken away. With 36 years of windows behind me, recent years have seen a massive decline in quality of product.
Marcin Policht 85,255 Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator

2026-04-08T19:42:37.45+00:00

When “Change Source” doesn’t stick, it might be because Excel isn’t actually treating those as standard external workbook links. They may be embedded as text inside formulas, defined names, tables, or queries, so the Edit Links dialog can’t override them.

On autosave, the limitation isn’t purely commercial. AFAIK, the current AutoSave relies on continuous background versioning and coauthoring infrastructure, which is tied to OneDrive/SharePoint. Local files don’t have that same transaction model, so Excel falls back to traditional manual saves or AutoRecover snapshots. Older “autosave” behavior you’re thinking of is now essentially AutoRecover, not the live-saving system Microsoft rebranded as AutoSave.

If you want something closer to automatic saving on a local drive, you can mimic it with a timed macro:

Private Sub Workbook_Open() Application.OnTime Now + TimeValue("00:05:00"), "AutoSaveLocal" End Sub Sub AutoSaveLocal() ThisWorkbook.Save Application.OnTime Now + TimeValue("00:05:00"), "AutoSaveLocal" End Sub

That would save every 5 minutes without OneDrive. It’s not as robust as versioned autosave, but it should allow you to restore the behavior you’re expecting without moving files online.

If the above response helps answer your question, remember to "Accept Answer" so that others in the community facing similar issues can easily find the solution. Your contribution is highly appreciated.

hth

Marcin
Ben Mawson 0 Reputation points

2026-04-09T11:07:08.55+00:00

Thank you for proving my point whilst not addressing it directly. Can no one be honest these days? This feels like a punitive measure to encourage everyone to use onedrive.

What a convoluted way to ensure users don't lose data. The need to autosave has nothing to do with the file location. I have a long list of serious failings with Excel (e.g. If i have linked to a file, make a copy of that file to use as a template, the links auto change to the new file).

Sadly, Microsoft appear too lofty to actually listen to users and probably gaslights us all as idiots while refusing to answer reasonable questions like what was the business case for removing autosave features saving to harddrives. It feels like offline users like myself (always on client sites and often without internet access, can't share my output with an external client via my company's one drive) have been deliberately neglected because it makes life easier to think all users have the same requirements.

36 years but my thoughts are worthless to the hubris people at microsoft. Users are just revenue sources. The truth that we're people trying to do jobs is just inconvenient.

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Excel changed link location

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