Where is the Normal Template Stored?

Timothy J. McGowan:
Another place the info can be found is in Trust Center-> Trust Center Settings -> Trusted Locations, but I guess your IT would have blocked it as well.

And make sure you create a backup copy of that bad boy! (Backup one's building blocks, too). A crash/corruption/deletion of the normal.dotm template will leave one without all those styles, quick parts, etc. one has spent countless hours creating. Ask me how I learned this hard lesson. :-|

Oh, THAT'S where we're supposed to find the location in Word's Options. I hunted for a while and figured it wasn't there. And for me, as an Enterprise user, working for the state, the information is really not there: I.T. has blocked/locked that part of Word's settings, so I'd overlooked it. Next time, I'll use my personal copy of Microsoft Office.

Regardless, using File Manager to get to your Templates folder, %appdata%\Microsoft\Templates\ will get you there every time unless you've really worked to subvert Word's settings.

Just a further comment on the twisted ways Word deals with templates named Normal:
I strongly suggest to make sure that you have one and only one normal template and that it is in the %appdata%\Microsoft\Templates folder. Also, for users of the recent versions of word it should be in the .dotm format. If you need to use various other templates, never name them Normal; this will just create confusion, but what's more, you may not be able to easily access such templates (more on that in a moment). While you may not intentionally create such a misplaced template, it is easy to be tricked by Word to do so. See, when you want to save a document as a dotm template, Word will try to save it into the default File location or into the personal templates location. Often, when you switch the file type to one of the template formats (dotx, dotm, or dot) Word is trying to be helpful and switches the current directory to the personal templates location. If you want to save the template into %appdata%\Microsoft\Templates, you have to navigate back to that folder and make sure that Word doesn't switch it again. Even then you cannot overwrite the Normal.dotm as it is in use, but how to modify the normal template is another story.

Now, let's say that you saved your Normal.dotm into any other folder of your choice (including personal templates location). You would think that if in File explorer you navigate to that folder and double-click on Normal.dotm, you would create a new document based on the template from that folder, like what happens when you double-click on any other template. Not so!!! Word ignores that Normal template, and the new document is created based on the Normal template from %appdata%\Microsoft\Templates. The same happens when you try to create a new document based on a template and you select Normal from the Personal templates available in the Backstage. It should base the document on the template in the personal templates location, but again, the document is based on the Normal,dotm from %appdata%\Microsoft\Templates.

There is almost no way to use the Normal.dotm template stored anywhere but the default folder (you can, if you rename it ;-).

@Rod Grealish:
normal.docm is not a template!
In recent versions of the Office the global template is Normal.dotm.

Yes, doing search for normal.dotm will likely find several files, whether you use a search app, or use the file manager search. Also, the latter is not always dependable, especially if some of the folders have the hidden attribute set.

The subject of this tip was to identify which of the files found is actually the template used by Word. On any particular computer there may be many possible Normal templates (.dotm, .dotx. .dot) and they may be in several locations even for a single user. The only one that really matters is Normal.dotm in the folder that can be found as described in the tip. As the tip suggests, you can delete, or rename, all the other Normal templates.

Another approach is to use a search app. I use Everything which keeps an updated database of all files on your PC or laptop. Enter normal.docm into the search bar and instantly the locations of all the Normal templates are revealed. There may be more than one template if there is more than one user.