53

Where do Word for Mac and Powerpoint for Mac store user templates?

bmike
  • 235,889
Vineet Bhatia
  • 683

3 Answers3

52

According to this page, and confirmed by experiment, the path has changed for Office 2016. It is now ~/Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/User Content/Templates. (This is what you see in the Finder: if you use Terminal the last two directories have ".localized" appended to their name, which Finder evidently suppresses).

Be aware that if you performed an upgrade of Office, you will still have the ~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/User Templates/My Templates directory, but Powerpoint, at least, won't look in that location.

Dave Mulligan
  • 1,015
  • 3
    Hi @davemulligan, That answer was a step in the right direction but didn't work for me (El Capitan, Office 2016). As much as I prefer reading text to watching instructional videos, I found watching this tutorial video from MSFT to be the only thing that helped me add the template. – rzrelyea Oct 03 '16 at 21:09
  • 9
    For me, the exact path was ~/Library/Group\ Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/User\ Content.localized/Templates.localized/ – Dawngerpony Jun 01 '18 at 14:30
  • 1
    A variation of this works. Should point out that from within the application (e.g. PowerPoint) you can go open a file and then act as if you're going to save a new template to get the path (File > Save as Template...) – Stefan Avey Jan 06 '20 at 17:48
  • 2
    Jan 2022 update (with path spelt out in full for users migrating from a Windows machine): /Users/[your_username]/Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/User Content/Templates. – TechnoCat Jan 26 '22 at 23:39
38

In the English version of Word and PowerPoint 2011, Templates are stored inside your Home folder in ~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/User Templates/My Templates. In other languages, the User Templates/My Templates part is localized (e.g. Benutzervorlagen/Eigene Vorlagen/ in German).

The User's Library folder is hidden in 10.7 and later, but you can go there by holding down option while clicking the Go menu in the Finder, then selecting Library.

user3439894
  • 58,676
jaberg
  • 9,849
  • Great edit @patrix. Thanks for the "internationalization". – jaberg Feb 09 '12 at 19:58
  • THANK YOU! I used the Go to folder command and went straight to the folder. –  Sep 19 '13 at 22:42
  • If you don't have such folder, here's what I've done. I created that folder manually and dragged a couple of templates I've found online and there they are! When I choose New From Template (PPoint), they showed. Thanks! – Martin Mar 07 '14 at 01:38
  • I created the Meine Vorlagen Folder with the german name and it worked. The folder name is really translated not like the applications folder that only is translated in the finder and not on the file system. – Janusz Feb 01 '15 at 13:32
  • 1
    Note that if you are trying to navigate to this folder from within a program e.g. an open/save dialog then you need to hit Command + Shift + G to bring up to Go To Folder dialog – RobV Feb 12 '15 at 12:35
  • As those mentioned locations seem "default" you are also able to set your custom location by simply going to Word 2016 settings and setting the location for word. This will result in setting the location for PP as well. – merlin Aug 23 '16 at 08:18
  • This answer is outdated for new versions (2011 was a while ago). For 2022, see TechnoCat's comment in Dave's answer. – MBorg Feb 07 '22 at 07:17
2

The location changes with newer Microsoft Office versions for Mac. The location for my MacBook Pro 2021, using Microsoft Office 365, matches that from TechnoCat's comment under Dave Mulligan's answer. /Users/[your_username]/Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/User Content/Templates][1].

enter image description here

The location is normally invisible, so you will need to reveal hidden files to find it. There's more than one way to do this. The easiest is simultaneously pressing cmd + shift + .. Using Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles true
killall Finder

And then to hide the files again:

defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles false
killall Finder
MBorg
  • 139