At first hitting tab (PC's cancel) would send them to their pickup... but it turns out that actually just dismisses them to their previous location, not their default one. (It's just that their previous location IS their default one, if you haven't send them anywhere else.)

Having companions with no personal ties to their old locations or with ties to me personally (Codsworth and Dog being non-spoiler examples) stay in my home settlement is fine. But some of these companions have their own jobs! In their own cities! I tell them to stay at my settlement while I run a quest for someone else so I can pick them up on the way back and now they won't leave, even though we're not hanging out anymore.

How can I send companions back to their regular positions? Why will they never leave?

Is there a way, or is this something someone will have to mod in....?

I'm surprised that this still hasn't been answered.

When the option window to send them to a settlement pops up, simply cancel. They'll automatically head for their original location.

Again, that isn't the case - if you cancel, they head back to their LAST LOCATION, not their original. At first, that DID send them back home because that was their last location, but because I told Hancock to stay at my base that ONE TIME, now whenever I cancel, that's where he goes. I wanna send that freeloader back to do his damn job D:

Really? Damn it. I sent Strong back to Hangman's Alley temporary and planned on eventually getting him back to Trinity Tower when I get a settlement running at Hangman's. That svcks.

Should really include their original location in that list of locations instead of all of the worthless settlements you're not going to use anyway.

They should also include the Home Plate player home in Diamond City as a location. I had planned on sending everyone there, but no dice.

Yeah, this is most infuriating with Piper and Valentine. My Piper pretty much abandoned her home, her job, and her kid sister so that she could live out her days farming at Sactuary. And Diamond City will forevermore have to live without its greatest detective. Like, I get MacCreedy, Cait, or even Strong moving to one of my settlements for good. They didn't have any real attachments to where they started in the first place. But with some of the others, it just feels completely nonsensical.

Something else to remember is that companions seem to count towards your settlement limit. I couldn't send Curie to Sanctuary or The Castle because both were already at the cap.

My mistake, I didn't know that. I don't think I've ever sent any of my companions, except for Dogmeat, to one of my settlements, so it seemed to me that it placed them back to their original place.

Yeah, this is lame.

I went through a trawl through the Nexus for a mod fix, with no luck. Either the necessary people haven't noticed this as a problem or, more likely, it will require the Geck to fix - so we looking at a couple months at least.

For now, I guess... never send companions to specific locations. Unless you intend to collect them like bobbleheads. Esp not Piper, Valentine, or Hancock...