Update Current Office

Follow these steps to restore and update Word and the rest of Office on the Mac:

1. Open any remaining Microsoft 365/Office app (for example, Excel or PowerPoint). If none are available or working, reinstall Office from the Microsoft account page associated with the subscription or product key.
2. After at least one Office app is installed, open it (for example, Word once it is back).
3. On the top menu bar, select Help > Check for Updates.
4. In Microsoft AutoUpdate, select Automatically keep Microsoft apps up to date so Word and the other apps stay current with security fixes and improvements.
5. Select Update (or Update All) to download and install all available updates.

If Word was previously an older perpetual version such as Office 2019 for Mac and support has ended, consider upgrading:

• Upgrade to a Microsoft 365 subscription to always have the latest Word and Office apps.
• Or purchase Office 2024 for Mac as a one-time license and then run Help > Check for Updates after installation to ensure it is fully updated.

If unsure whether Office was installed from the Mac App Store or directly from Microsoft, run this command in Terminal:

mdls -name kMDItemAppStoreReceiptType /Applications/Microsoft\ Word.app

• If the result shows MDItemAppStoreReceiptType = (null), use Microsoft AutoUpdate as described above.
• If it shows "Production", update Word and Office through the Mac App Store instead.

References:

• Update Office for Mac automatically
• End of support for Office 2019 for Mac
• Deploy updates for Office for Mac