Onenote stuck on please wait screen

Question

Onenote stuck on please wait screen

Elodie W 0

Whenever I open one note on my mac after about a minute or after changing the page I am looking at, the little please wait screen comes up and my curser turns into the rainbow spinning wheel of death, and then is stuck like this so I have to force quit and then when I re-open it the same thing happens. This has been happening for a week now. I have tried updating the app and that did not work, the same thing happened to some of my friends one notes as well but theirs just randomly resolved but mine has not. One-note on my iPad still works and one-note on web still works. I have tried restarting my laptop, I have tried uninstalling the app and reinstalling and those did not work. In the force quit screen it says that Microsoft one note is not responding. (I have removed some things for privacy from the screenshot) Screenshot 2026-08-07 at 12.48.19 pm

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Answer 1

Alina Le 4,445 Independent Advisor

Hello @Elodie W

It's great that you've removed all personal information before posting this in a public forum.

Coming back to your issue, based on what you've described, I can see that:

OneNote works on your iPad.
OneNote works in the web browser.
Reinstalling OneNote on the Mac did not fix it.
The freeze often happens when switching pages, then shows"Please wait" and becomes"Not Responding."

That points more toward a corrupted local cache, account credential issue, or a problem within your macOS user profile, rather than the notebook itself.

To clarify this issue with youI will also share a few simple steps you can try to double‑check what might be happening on your end.

1/ Clear the OneNote cache

You can open Finder -> Click Go in the menu bar.

Press Option to reveal the Library folder.
Navigate to: ~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.onenote.mac
Delete the folder com.microsoft.onenote.mac.
This clears corrupted cache files that often cause freezing and unresponsiveness

2/ Sign out and remove Microsoft credentials

Sometimes OneNote gets stuck because of damaged authentication tokens.

Quit OneNote.
Open Keychain Access.
Search for: Microsoft or Office
Delete Microsoft Office or OneNote related credentials.
Reopen OneNote and sign in again.

If you get stuck while trying the steps above, please share a screenshot or provide more detailed information. I will check the situation and continue to support you.

Kind regards,

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Elodie W 0 Reputation points

2026-08-07T05:33:27.65+00:00

When I paste it into go to folder, nothing comes up. just in case you need to do step 1 for step 2 to work i haven't done 2 yet but i also have added a screenshot of what comes up when i open keychain access and search microsoft. but also when i type in onenote in keychain access no credentials come up
Elodie W 0 Reputation points

2026-08-07T08:40:45.9366667+00:00

In the files from onenote in finder when i search up that folder name there are 5 folders titled com.microsoft.onenote.mac which one should i delete
Alina Le 4,445 Reputation points Independent Advisor

2026-08-07T15:38:49.0666667+00:00
Hi

Thanks for checking. If ~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.onenote.mac does not appear in "Go to Folder", that usually means either:

The OneNote container folder has not been created on this Mac yet, or

Your version of OneNote is storing data in a different container location.

Please try the following:

In Finder, select "Go" from the menu bar and hold the "Option" key.

Click "Library".

Open the Containers folder and look manually for any folders beginning with:

com.microsoft.onenote or

Microsoft OneNote

A screenshot of the ~/Library/Containers/ folder would be helpful for identifying the correct OneNote cache location.

Looking forward to hearing from you!
Elodie W 0 Reputation points

2026-08-08T04:22:46.8866667+00:00

which one of these should i delete or should i delete all of them
Alina Le 4,445 Reputation points Independent Advisor

2026-08-08T08:06:15.5+00:00
Hi

As the screenshot, it looks like Finder is currently searching for com.microsoft.onenote rather than opening the actual OneNote container folder.

Please follow the steps below again to make sure you are looking at the correct location before deleting anything:

Close the Finder search window.

Open Finder.

From the menu bar, select Go > Go to Folder... (or press Shift + Command + G).

Enter the following path exactly as shown: ~/Library/Containers/

Press Return.

A folder named Containers should open. Do not use the search box at the top-right of Finder.

In the opened Containers folder, scroll through the folder list and look for: com.microsoft.onenote.mac

(The exact options and button names may vary slightly depending on your macOS version.)

Important:

Before proceeding, please ensure that all of your notebooks are fully synced and can be opened successfully in OneNote on the web. Any changes that have not yet synced to OneDrive may be lost, so please verify synchronization first.

After that, you can delete and recheck the issue again.

Have a nice day!