To turn off OneNote Audio Search for users, create a Windows Settings Catalog profile in Intune, find OneNote > Audio and Video > Disable Audio Search for user, enable that policy, and assign the profile to the required user group. The wording is counterintuitive: enabling the Intune setting enables the disable policy, so spoken-word search in OneNote audio and video recordings is turned off.
Microsoft describes Audio Search as a way to search spoken words in recorded audio and video. The end-user preference is off by default because it can slow searching. The exact Intune setting name and its reported policy mapping come from a third-party walkthrough, so validate the result in your tenant and Office build before broad deployment.
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What the policy controls
OneNote Audio Search indexes speech in audio and video recordings attached to notes. When the feature is available and enabled in OneNote, a user can search for a spoken word and find the recording location where it occurs. Microsoft’s support documentation covers Microsoft 365, OneNote 2024, OneNote 2021, and OneNote 2016, but it is feature guidance rather than a compatibility matrix for the Intune policy.
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1Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute2Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors3Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesIn the desktop app, the user-facing control is under File > Options > Audio & Video, in the Audio Search section. Microsoft says the option is turned off by default because it slows down searching. See Microsoft’s Search notes in OneNote documentation for the application behavior.
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The Intune control has the opposite-looking name, Disable Audio Search for user. According to the August 1, 2025 walkthrough, setting this policy to Enabled disables Audio Search for the targeted users. It does not enable speech indexing. Treat that distinction as the central deployment rule:
| Where you configure it | Setting or state | Result |
|---|---|---|
| OneNote | Audio Search enabled | The user can search spoken words in supported audio and video recordings. |
| OneNote | Audio Search turned off | Audio and video speech is not available through Audio Search. |
| Intune Settings Catalog | Disable Audio Search for user set to Enabled | The disable policy is applied, turning Audio Search off for assigned users. |
The policy name and behavior are documented by the HTMD Intune walkthrough, not by the Microsoft Settings Catalog article itself. Microsoft’s official documentation explains how to create Settings Catalog policies generally, so confirm that your tenant exposes the same OneNote setting before relying on an automated deployment.
Before you create the profile
- Confirm the management target. This procedure is for Windows devices managed through Microsoft Intune. The setting is described as a user policy, so plan assignments around user groups rather than assuming a device-only deployment will produce the expected result.
- Identify the OneNote edition and update channel. Microsoft’s Audio Search guidance covers Microsoft 365, OneNote 2024, OneNote 2021, and OneNote 2016. The available policy, processing behavior, and registry representation may differ by Office edition, Windows release, update channel, or build.
- Choose a pilot group. Start with a small group of users who record or search OneNote audio and video. This lets you verify that the policy is received and that the resulting user experience matches your compliance or performance requirement.
- Decide whether the goal is a blanket block. Enabling the disable policy removes Audio Search for every assigned user. If only particular notebooks, recordings, or departments should be restricted, this user-level control may be broader than necessary.
- Use the current portal search. Intune labels and navigation change. Microsoft’s Create a policy using settings catalog in Microsoft Intune guidance describes the searchable catalog and available filters, including user or device scope filters where supported.
How to configure the policy in Intune
1. Start a Windows Settings Catalog profile
- Open the Microsoft Intune admin center with an account that can create device configuration profiles.
- Go to Devices, open the Windows configuration area, and choose Create or Create policy. Portal wording can vary by tenant navigation version.
- Select Windows 10 and later as the platform.
- For the profile type, select Settings catalog, then continue.
- Give the profile a specific name, such as
OneNote - Disable Audio Search for users. Add a description that records the intended user population and the reason for disabling speech search.
2. Add the OneNote setting
- On the settings selection page, choose Add settings.
- Search the catalog for OneNote. Searching is safer than depending on a fixed category path because Microsoft can reorganize the catalog interface.
- Open the OneNote category and inspect Audio and Video.
- Select Disable Audio Search for user. If your catalog does not show that exact label, do not substitute a similarly named setting without confirming its description and scope.
- Set the selected policy to Enabled. Here, “Enabled” means that the disable instruction is active; the expected result is that Audio Search is turned off for assigned users.
- Save the setting and continue through the profile wizard.
3. Assign users and complete the profile
- On Assignments, add the pilot user group. Review included and excluded groups carefully, especially if a broad group contains administrators or test accounts.
- Use any available scope filter that distinguishes user settings from device settings. The Settings Catalog supports filtering by scope where the platform exposes that metadata, but the exact filter options can vary.
- Review the profile summary. Confirm the platform, profile type, assignment groups, and the exact setting name before selecting Create.
- Ask pilot users to sign in to an assigned Windows device and allow the normal policy check-in interval. Do not interpret the profile’s creation status as proof that the setting has already reached a device.
What users should see after deployment
After the policy is processed, Audio Search should be unavailable for the assigned user. A user may still see OneNote’s general audio and video options, but the speech-search capability should be disabled rather than activated. The Intune setting is not a control for deleting recordings, preventing recording, or removing ordinary text search from notes.
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Keep the application preference and management policy separate when communicating the change. The OneNote preference controls whether the application searches spoken words; the Intune policy is explicitly a disable policy. Telling users that the Intune profile “enables Audio Search” would describe the opposite of its reported effect.
How to verify that the policy applied
Check Intune reporting first
Open the profile’s per-setting or device-and-user status view and look for the assigned pilot users. A successful profile assignment indicates that Intune evaluated the assignment; it does not by itself prove that the OneNote build accepted the setting. Check for user-level errors, conflicts, or a device that has not checked in recently.
Test in OneNote with a pilot account
- Sign in as a user who is directly included in the assignment.
- Open the desktop OneNote app and navigate to File > Options > Audio & Video.
- Inspect the Audio Search area and test a known audio or video note only if your organization permits it.
- Compare the behavior with an unassigned test account. Keep the comparison on the same Windows and Office build so that version differences do not look like policy differences.
A user may need to restart OneNote, sign out and back in, or wait for policy processing before the application reflects a changed setting. Avoid treating a single stale session as evidence that the deployment failed.
Use diagnostic logs when reporting is inconclusive
The walkthrough refers to Device Management Enterprise Diagnostic Provider events as a place to investigate policy processing. In Event Viewer, the relevant provider is commonly found under Applications and Services Logs > Microsoft > Windows > DeviceManagement-Enterprise-Diagnostics-Provider. Event names and IDs are not guaranteed to be identical across Windows releases, so use the timestamp, user, profile name, and setting text to correlate entries rather than expecting one universal event number.
Use the registry only as a troubleshooting clue
A separate policy reference identifies the policy identifier L_Disableaudosearch and the value name enableaudiosearch under the Office 16.0 OneNote policy key. These labels can help an administrator search a test machine, but they are not a promise that every Office edition, architecture, update channel, or management scope writes the same location or value. The reference is available from ADMX Viewer’s “Disable audio search” entry.
Do not edit a production registry manually to force the result. First confirm the profile assignment and policy status, then compare the reported value on a pilot machine with the exact Office build. A missing value can mean that the policy was not processed, that the setting is stored elsewhere for that build, or that the policy is not supported—not necessarily that the user has overridden it.
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The setting is not listed in the catalog
Search for the full phrase and for separate terms such as Audio Search and OneNote. Check that the platform is Windows and that you selected Settings Catalog rather than a different profile type. If the exact setting still does not appear, record the tenant, Windows release, Office edition, and catalog date, then validate support before using a custom administrative template.
The profile exists but users remain able to search speech
- Confirm that the affected account is in an included group and not in an exclusion.
- Check the user’s last Intune check-in and per-setting status.
- Make sure the policy was set to Enabled; leaving the setting unconfigured does not activate the disable instruction.
- Restart OneNote after policy processing and test the same account again.
- Look for another profile that configures the same OneNote setting and creates a conflict.
- Verify that you are testing the managed desktop OneNote app covered by the policy, not a different client or web experience.
The profile reports an error
Capture the exact Intune error, assignment scope, Windows version, Office build, and user context. Compare the failing account with a pilot account on the same device type. If the error appears only on one edition or update channel, treat that as a compatibility boundary and avoid expanding the assignment until Microsoft or your internal testing confirms support.
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User-based configuration can differ by group membership, sign-in account, licensing context, check-in timing, and exclusions. Verify the effective assignment for each user instead of assuming that a shared computer has one universal result. A device can receive a profile while a particular user still has not received the user-scoped setting.
Changing or removing the restriction
To restore Audio Search for a group, remove that group from the assignment or delete the profile after confirming that no other profile applies the same setting. Because the policy is a disable instruction, the safest change is to test the unassigned state with a pilot user and confirm the OneNote Audio Search preference before rolling back broadly. If another configuration profile still enables the disable policy, removing one assignment will not restore the feature.
Document the rollback time and the Office build used for validation. A user may retain the old state until the next policy refresh or application restart, so verify the effective result rather than relying solely on the profile’s deletion timestamp.
Compatibility and evidence limits
Microsoft’s support page establishes what Audio Search does and where the application option appears. Microsoft’s Settings Catalog documentation establishes the general Intune workflow. The specific catalog label, the claim that enabling it disables the feature, and the registry clues are reported by secondary references. Neither the available material nor the policy name establishes identical behavior across every Windows release, Office edition, update channel, or tenant configuration.
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For that reason, use a staged deployment, retain the exact profile export or screenshots, and validate both Intune status and the OneNote user experience on the Office builds your organization actually runs. Expand the assignment only after the pilot demonstrates the intended restriction without affecting ordinary note search or recording workflows.
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