How to Disable the “Pick up where you left off” Feature in Microsoft Word

What is “Pick up where you left off”?

When you open a long document in Microsoft Word, you have likely noticed a small banner or pop-up appearing on the right side of the screen that says, “Welcome back! Pick up where you left off.” Clicking this banner instantly scrolls the document to the exact location your cursor was placed when you last saved and closed the file. While this feature is incredibly useful for authors or editors working on massive reports, it can be highly annoying if you primarily use Word for reading, creating templates, or reviewing short memos where you always want to start at the very top of the page. Unfortunately, Microsoft does not provide a simple on/off switch for this feature in the standard Options menu.

How to Disable the Feature via Registry Editor

Because there is no simple toggle in the Word settings, you must disable the “Pick up where you left off” feature by modifying the Windows Registry. Always be careful when editing the registry.

1. Ensure Microsoft Word is completely closed.
2. Press the Windows Key + R to open the Run dialog box.
3. Type regedit and press Enter to open the Registry Editor. Click Yes if prompted by User Account Control.
4. In the Registry Editor, navigate to the following path based on your version of Office. For Office 365, Office 2019, and Office 2016, use this path:
5. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Word\Reading Locations
6. If you are using an older version (like Office 2013), replace 16.0 with 15.0.

Modifying the Reading Locations Key

The “Reading Locations” registry key stores the data for where you left off in various documents. To stop the feature, you need to prevent Word from writing to this key.

1. Right-click on the Reading Locations folder in the left pane.
2. Select Permissions… from the context menu.
3. In the Permissions window, click the Advanced button.
4. At the bottom of the Advanced Security Settings window, click Disable inheritance.
5. A prompt will appear. Choose Remove all inherited permissions from this object. (This clears all names from the permission entries list).
6. Click Apply, then click Yes on the Windows Security warning that pops up.
7. Click OK to close the Advanced window, and OK again to close the Permissions window.

Verifying the Change

By removing the permissions, you have stopped Microsoft Word from being able to save or read your last known location in a document. Close the Registry Editor and open a Word document you have worked on previously. The “Welcome back” pop-up will no longer appear, and the document will always open cleanly at the first page.