Sideload Office Add-ins on Mac for testing

Sideload your add-in in Office on Mac to see how your add-in runs. For debugging, see Debug Office Add-ins on a Mac.

Note

Currently, an add-in that uses the Unified manifest for Microsoft 365 can't be sideloaded on iPad. Outlook add-ins that use the unified manifest can't be sideloaded on Mac, but Excel, PowerPoint, and Word add-ins can be.

To sideload an add-in with a unified manifest on Windows, Mac, and the web, see Sideload Office Add-ins that uses the unified manifest for Microsoft 365.

Note

To sideload an Outlook add-in, see Sideload Outlook add-ins for testing.

This article refers to sideloading Excel, PowerPoint, and Word add-ins that use the add-in only manifest.

Prerequisites

A Mac running OS X v10.10 "Yosemite" or later with Office on Mac installed.
Word on Mac Version 15.18 (160109).
Excel on Mac Version 15.19 (160206).
PowerPoint on Mac Version 15.24 (160614).

Sideload an add-in in Office on Mac

Open Finder.
Press Cmd+Shift+G to open the Go to folder dialog.
Enter one of the following filepaths, based on the application you want to use for sideloading. If the wef folder doesn't exist on your computer, create it.
- For Word: /Users/<username>/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data/Documents/wef
- For Excel: /Users/<username>/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Excel/Data/Documents/wef
- For PowerPoint: /Users/<username>/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Powerpoint/Data/Documents/wef
  
  Note
  
  The remaining steps describe how to sideload a Word add-in, but they apply to Excel and PowerPoint too.
Copy your add-in's manifest file to this wef folder.
Open Word (or restart Word if it's already running), then open a document.
Select Home > Add-ins, and then select your add-in from the menu.
Verify that your add-in is displayed in Word.