cannot sent word document directly from macbook

Question

I cannot send a word document directly to outlook email on my macbook - i have office 365

Answer 1

Hi @Gillani, Asmita – Corporate, 

Thank you for reaching out and sharing your experience regarding the functionality to send a Word document on your Mac. 

According your concern, I have tested the behavior on my test environment and it the feature only works with Legacy Outlook enabled. To better assist and provide you with more precise and targeted solutions, could you please share more details about the situation: 

1. Are you using Legacy or New Outlook on your device? To confirm, please make sure if the Legacy Outlook toggle is on or not. 
2. What exactly happened when you shared the Word document? (Outlook not open when pressing Share>Send PDF/Send a copy  in Word, Outlook opened but not create a new email, etc.) 
3. Is there any error message ? If yes, please share the full wording of the error. 

Thank you for your patience and cooperation during the troubleshooting process. I'm looking forward to your reply.  

Answer 2

On macOS with Microsoft 365, sending a Word document directly via Outlook depends on using a MAPI‑compliant Outlook client. New Outlook for Mac and some non‑default mail setups cannot be used for this automation.

Use these checks and workarounds:

1. Verify Outlook is the default mail app
   • Word can only use the “Send as attachment” feature if Outlook is installed as part of Microsoft 365 and set as the default email app.
   • If Outlook is not the default, configure it as described in Make Outlook the default program for email, contacts, and calendar, then retry from Word: File > Share > Attach a copy instead.
2. Use Word’s built‑in Share flow
   • In Word on Mac: File > Share.
   • Choose:
     • Upload to OneDrive to upload and then share via link/email, or
     • Attach a copy instead to create an email with the document or a PDF attached.
3. If nothing happens when attaching from Outlook for Mac
   • On macOS Sequoia, there was a bug where adding attachments did nothing in Outlook for Mac.
   • This is fixed in Outlook Version 16.90.0. Update Office for Mac to the latest version, then try again.
4. If using New Outlook and getting MAPI‑related failures
   • New Outlook is not MAPI‑compliant and cannot be used for sending files directly from Word/Office apps or for mail merge.
   • If Word shows “MAPI failure” or simply does not send when using Share > Email, switch to Classic Outlook for Mac and set it as the default mail client, then retry.

If, after these steps, the message is created but will not send, check for size or storage issues (large attachments or full cloud mailbox) and reduce or remove attachments before sending.

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References:

• Email a document from Microsoft Office
• Unable to add files as an attachment to emails in Outlook for Mac
• Office 365 apps insist on using Outlook Classic to share documents to email - Microsoft Q&A
• I am unable to share my file either as a presentation or document type or pdf type by none of the microsoft office apps (Word, Excel, Powerpoint). It is continuously showing "Mapi Failure" and "Unable to Share" errors. What can I do? - Microsoft Q&A
• My email message doesn't send