04-22-2011, 10:09 PM

By accident I saved an individual letter as a Word for Mac **template** instead of as a **document**.

I have not been able to remove the incorrect templates within Word or even find them on the hard drive. A web search yielded advice that doesn't work out when I follow it.

Opening the Microsoft Office 2008 folder in Applications reveals the following items: Additional Tools folder, Microsoft Document Connection, Microsoft Entourage, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Messenger, Microsoft Powerpoint, Microsoft Word, Office folder, PDFMakerLib and Read Me.

The Additional Tools folder and its subfolders have nothing that have anything to do with templates. The Office folder has tons of items, including a Media folder. That has a subfolder Templates. It contains what appear to be the 'canned' templates that come with the program, not the ones I've created.

Trying to change the templates to a blank document and saving it, creates a new blank template but doesn't remove the original bad template.

Can anyone help me remove these unwanted templates?

04-22-2011, 10:48 PM

Here's where the user templates are stored:

/Users/your user name/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/User Templates/My Templates

Whenever you create and save a template that's not one provided by Office, it gets put in the above folder.

08-15-2011, 10:43 PM

anyone know how to do this on lion and office 2011?

08-15-2011, 10:58 PM

Read Post #2. Same applies to Mac Office 2011 and Lion. The file - folder structure is the same as Mac Office 2008.

09-04-2011, 10:29 AM

My library/application support/microsoft yields this:



I don't remember ever moving the office folder.

09-04-2011, 01:52 PM

Whatever you were trying to post didn't take. If you're missing an Office folder, first make sure you're viewing the correct Library folder. The correct Library folder is the one directly associated with your user name.

Also note that in Lion, the user Library folder is hidden by default. Read this LINK.

09-04-2011, 05:44 PM

FANTASTIC! Thank you so much!

01-16-2012, 06:06 AM

Hi there,

I was hoping you could help, I am having the same problem of not being able to remove a template that was accidentally created. I followed the steps: /Users/your user name/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/User Templates/My Templates

But in the 'user templates' folder all that I could find was normal called a 'normal template' that was a document and not a folder.

Where have I gone wrong?

Any tips of advice would be greatly appreciated!!

Thank you!

01-16-2012, 05:54 PM

In the "User Templates" folder, you should have a sub folder called "My Templates". That's where the template you accidentally created will be.

The file "normal.dotm" is not a document, it's your normal template which always has to be there in order to create new documents and to edit older ones.

02-19-2012, 06:25 PM

Where is User?

03-08-2012, 11:16 AM

I am having the same problem but when i get to the microsoft folder it does not have the above folders. It has MAU2.0 MERP2.0 PlayReady and Silverlight...
Any help would be appreciated.

03-08-2012, 01:49 PM

You're in the wrong folder. Notice the post above about the user library being hidden in Lion. Read through this entire thread and post back if you're still having difficulties.

03-23-2012, 11:52 AM

Great help friends, thks

03-24-2012, 10:54 AM

I use this file called Cloak, to unhide my files...
Download Cloak for Mac - Hide and unhide invisible files. MacUpdate.com

I should add it work a treat on Lion OS

04-19-2013, 11:41 AM

I have the same problem with having created a dotx template which I now want to delete. and have read all the advice but having finally found a folder caller 'user templates' it has a little red X against it so won't let me burrow any further. Apologies in advance if the question is obvious but I am new to a Mac. I bought my MacBook Pro a couple of months ago together with 'Office' and the operating system is 10.8.3 if that helps.
Many thanks in advance.