I'm not able to look at excel. Is my subscription expired

Hi @Stephanie Glass,

Good day to you! Welcome to Microsoft Q&A. 

Based on your description, here's how to check why excel sheet download failed: 

1. Protected or Password-Locked Files 

If the Excel file is password-protected, you may see an error like “Your file can't be opened because it's protected with a password.” This is common when trying to open attachments on mobile devices, especially if security apps like McAfee are installed. 

2. Excel Add-ins or DDE Conflicts 

Excel add-ins or Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) settings can block attachments from opening directly in Outlook. 

Fix: 

• Disable all Excel Add-ins: Go to File > Options > Add-ins > COM Add-ins > Go, then uncheck all. 
• Uncheck “Ignore other applications that use DDE”: File > Options > Advanced > General. 

3. Trust Center Settings 

Excel’s Trust Center may block files from unsafe locations. 

Fix: 

• Go to File > Options > Trust Center > Trust Center Settings > Protected View. 
• Enable only “Protected View for files located in potentially unsafe locations” 

If you need to make sure that your account is still assigned with a Microsoft 365 license, here's how to do it: 

1. Sign in to My account 
2. Select subscriptions 
3. Check if your license includes desktop version of Office. 

If you have any further questions and concerns, please don’t hesitate to ask. Looking forward to your response. 

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In this case user can also have security measures that prevent user from opening the file.

1. Maybe the excel file is not a normal file and can have macro's enable. You can check this by extension name like .xlsx or .xls or .xlsm. If the extension is .xlsx that means its a normal spreadsheet and you may have other problems.
2. The file could be linked to an external source for example when someone shares an excel file from sharepoint file. It restricts the other user to open the file who are not in the same organization. Are you in the same company/organization as the sender is? If not this could be a possoble problem.
   3.The file itself could be corrupt file and hence excel does not open it. It happened with me a lot when I am sharing a google sheets downloaded as excel file and I shared with my client however it does not open for them as it was corrupt.
3. It is likely not possible it is password protected as if it was then it would prompt for the password and you would know that since you dont have a password. Nor you subscription is expired because evenif your subscription has expired it will still open the file however will prompt you that the subscription is expired.

For more details regarding the issues you may hire a freelancer like Excel wizard