How to share a OneNote notebook

Important: 

Invite people to your OneNote notebook

You can invite people to see your notebook with an email message generated by OneNote. Only people who are invited will be able to open your notebook.

  1. Select  Share from the upper right corner of the window, then Share Entire Notebook.

    Tip: To share a OneNote notebook, it must be saved in OneDrive or a SharePoint site. If you see "Please upload your notebook to share it", pick an account to share from.

  2. In the box, type the names or email addresses of people or groups you'd like to share your notebook with.

  3. In the ​​​​​​​drop-down box next to the names, choose whether the recipients can edit or can view your notebook.

    Tip: You can change the sharing permissions of existing members here too. Select next to the list of people already invited.

  4. Add a personal note if you like and select Send. The people you've selected will get an email invitation to open your notebook.

    Note: ​​​​​If you change your mind, you can change permissions or stop sharing your notebook

Get a sharing link to your OneNote notebook

You can generate a link to your notebook so others can view or edit it. If someone forwards the link to another person, they will also be able to see your notebook.

  1. Select  Share from the upper right corner of the window, then Copy Link to Notebook.

    Tips: 

    • If you're still using OneNote for Windows 10, just select  Share.

    • To share a OneNote notebook, it must be saved in OneDrive or a SharePoint site. If you see "Please upload your notebook to share it", pick an account to share from.

  2. Choose  Copy link.

    Tip: Select  Link settings to manage link access. If you change your mind, you can change permissions or stop sharing your notebook

OneNote for Mac offers you several options for sharing your notes, depending on whether you want others to be able to collaborate with you, or whether you just want others to be able to read your notes on their own.

Invite people to your Notebook

On the menu bar, click File, point to Share, and then do either of the following:

  • Click Invite People to Notebook to create an invitation to your current notebook that you can send to specific people you select. Enter the email addresses of the intended recipients and select the Can Edit checkbox if you want them to be able to make changes to your notebook. When you click Share, OneNote will send the invitation in your default email app.

  • Click Copy View and Edit Link to Notebook to create a sharing link that you can paste into any message, a document, or a file. People who click this link will be able to view and edit your notes.

Tip: To share a OneNote notebook, it must be saved in OneDrive or a SharePoint site. If you see "Please upload your notebook to share it", pick an account to share from.

Share notes for reading distribution

On the menu bar, click File, point to Share, and then do either of the following:

  • Click Copy View-Only Link to Notebook to create a sharing link that you can paste into any document or file. People who will click this link will be able to view your notes, but not edit them.

  • Click Send Page as Email Message to create an email that contains a snapshot of the current page in your notebook.

  • Click Send Page PDF to create an Adobe PDF (Portable Document Format) file snapshot of the current page in your notebook. This file will be sent as a read-only email attachment to specific people you select. Recipients of this file will be able to view and read it on any computer or mobile device they choose.

In OneNote for iPad or iPhone, you can send a page of notes in email or share an entire notebook.

  1. Tap the Share icon in the upper-right corner of the notebook you'd like to share.

  2. Choose whether to invite people or to copy the link to the notebook.

    • Invite People to Notebook: Type names or email addresses, choose whether recipients can edit the notebook, and tap Send. Only people on the mail can access your notebook.

    • Copy Link to Notebook: Choose View Only or View and Edit. The link is now ready for you to paste into an email. Anyone with this link can access your notebook.

You can't share a notebook from the Android, but you can send a PDF version of a single OneNote page as an email attachment.

To share a notebook, open your OneNote on PC, Mac or Web.

Invite others to view or co-author a notebook

  1. Select  Share from the upper right corner of the window, then Share Entire Notebook.

  2. In the box, type the names or email addresses of people or groups you'd like to share your notebook with.

  3. In the ​​​​​​​drop-down box next to the names, choose whether the recipients can edit or can view your notebook.

    Tip: You can change the sharing permissions of existing members here too. Select next to the list of people already invited.

  4. Add a personal note if you like and select Send. The people you've selected will get an email invitation to open your notebook. If you change your mind, you can change permissions or stop sharing your notebook

Get a sharing link to your OneNote notebook

You can generate a link to your notebook so others can view or edit it. If someone forwards the link to another person, they will also be able to see your notebook.

  1. Select  Share from the upper right corner of the window, then Copy Link to Notebook.

    Tip: Select  Settings to manage link access. If you change your mind, you can change permissions or stop sharing your notebook

  2. Copy and then paste this link wherever your intended audience (for example, your blog readers) can see and click it to gain access to your notebook.

    Note: Anyone with the link address will be able to see your notebook. Be sure you're comfortable sharing the contents before sharing the link.

We have removed the ability to share a single page of notes from personal notebooks stored on OneDrive. Please read below for more information about this feature deprecation and the technical reasons behind it.

How this feature used to work

If your notebook was stored on your personal OneDrive account, you were previously able to share a single page of notes that others could view but not edit. To do this, OneNote created an anonymous, public link to a Web-based version of the selected page.

Some of our customers used this feature to share a read-only view of a single page of notes with their families, friends, colleagues, and collaborators — without giving others access to the full notebook that the page was stored in.

Why we’ve disabled single page sharing

Our customers have repeatedly asked for the ability to share any single page of notes from all versions of OneNote and across all platforms — including Windows, Mac, iOS, Android and Web. We’ve also received overwhelming feedback from customers who want the ability to give full editing permissions for single pages, as well as support for sharing single pages from notebooks stored on OneDrive for Business accounts and on SharePoint, not only on personal OneDrive accounts like before.

The previous single-page sharing implementation from personal OneDrive notebooks was our initial attempt to begin building out the larger feature set. However, this first step didn’t satisfy the needs of our customers and, compared to full notebook sharing, usage of the limited page sharing feature was very low. The technical path we need to take to build out the full OneNote page sharing experience requires us to deprecate the previous functionality until comprehensive work on these feature improvements can be completed.

What happens to page links that I’ve already shared with other people?

Any previously shared links to single pages of notes have now expired. Recipients of shared page links will no longer be able to view these pages, unless a recipient has been given access to the full notebook containing a previously shared page.

Notebook owners can restore access to any previously shared pages by newly sharing the full notebook with collaborators.

We apologize for any inconvenience that this feature deprecation may cause.

Note: If you’d like to share your overall experiences with sharing notes in OneNote, please submit your feedback directly to our product team. Select the Feedback icon or  > Settings > Feedback

Although you can no longer share a single page of notes from notebooks, there are some alternative ways to share part of your notes.

Using OneNote for Windows, you can:

Using OneNote for Windows, Mac or web:

  • Create a new notebook. By creating a new notebook just for sharing, you can manage access to your Notes. Create a new notebook then Move or Copy the page you want to share to it, then share the new notebook.

See also

Stop sharing a notebook

Change sharing permissions

Send OneNote notes in email

Move a OneNote notebook to OneDrive

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