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Lost Ability to Compare Documents in Latest Update

Brian R 20 Reputation points
2026-05-14T19:33:54.96+00:00

Word for Mac Version 16.109 After updated this morning, when I go to compare documents, every Word document on my hard drive is grayed-out.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For business | MacOS
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Rick Statile 85 Reputation points
2026-05-18T15:37:43.22+00:00

I chatted with MS support and found a solution that solved this problem for me.

The issue is caused by the file picker filter (a button labelled "Show Options") at the bottom of the file picker screen being set to an incorrect option after the recent Word update. In my case, it was set to “Templates,” which causes all standard Word documents to appear greyed out and unselectable. To resolve this, go to Tools → Compare Documents, click to browse for a file, then click "Show Options", and change the “Enable” dropdown at the bottom from “Templates” to “All Readable Documents” or “Word Documents.” Once adjusted, your documents should become selectable again.

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  1. John Korchok 232.4K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2026-05-15T23:08:00.3666667+00:00

    On further investigation, I found this is a bug in the most recent update. To report it, please choose Help>Feedback>Report a problem in the program. I've also reported it.

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  2. John Korchok 232.4K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2026-05-14T20:25:38.2666667+00:00

    Try creating a new user account (System Settings>Users & Groups), signing in to that, then testing if the problem still exists. If it goes away, it's an issue with the user profile part of your Office installation.

    If the issue still exists, or you'd rather not move your user data to a new profile, try uninstalling Office following these steps: Uninstall Office for Mac Then reinstall from the Subscriptions page of your Microsoft account.

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  3. Ruby 0 Reputation points
    2026-05-19T10:28:08.14+00:00

    I also have this problem. It's made me late for an important work deadline and wasted around 2 hours of what was already a very stressful day. After a lot of fruitless trouble-shooting I found this post and reinstalled an earlier version of Word. But I'm seriously considering just switching to gdocs at this stage – not a fan of paying through the nose of software I can't rely on profressionally.

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