How do I stop Word from verifying every time I open it, and enable it to work offline? (Word for Mac)

Question

I purchased Microsoft Office Home & Student 2021 for Mac. Word version is 16.76.1. It was not a subscription, it was a purchase. Every time I open Word offline it crashes, will open nothing, and I have to use force quit. If I'm online, every time I have to wait while it "verifies". My OS for Mac is Ventura 13.5.1. I don't use the cloud, One Drive. How do I stop it from verifying every time, and enable it to work offline?

(*Moved from Office insider.)

Answer 1

Thank you for your quick reply.

Options was not listed under File in my version of Word.

Problem of "verifying" has stopped on its own, even before I turned off AutoUpdate.

Both Word and Excel now crash and I have to use Force Quit if I open them when offline. So I just work around it by making sure I am not offline.

Consider the problem solved. Thank you again.

Answer 2

Please note that your solution does NOT work because there is no "auto update" item in the MS Word preferences on a Mac (or the Excel preferences, or in the Outlook preferences). See the screenshot below, and please test your solutions using a Mac if the question relates to a Mac, instead of providing answers that can't possibly work b/c they are referring to things that don't exist in that version of the software.

This problem is really getting old... it takes several minutes every time the verification process runs, and while it's running I can barely use the computer for anything else b/c it slows the entire system to a crawl. And it happens every time I open a Microsoft product for the first time on a given day, even if I was using the exact same product the day before. I've switched my desktop email software away from Outlook because of this, use TextEdit over Word anytime I can, and would be using an alternative to Excel if I didn't routinely build complex spreadsheets that don't convert well to an alternative like openOffice.

I wouldn't care if this was a monthly thing, but having it happen EVERY SINGLE DAY for each MS application I open is beyond ridiculous. It's become a major daily timewaster and is costing me at least a few hundred dollars a year in lost time. And it's not limited to my computer, I also experience it every time I work on a client's computer so I doubt it's because of a problem with my MS installation or operating system. And it's only a problem when I'm on a Mac; when I'm on a PC the software doesn't verify itself daily.

Answer 3

Hi

If you copy the crash report and paste it into a reply here, the report may pinpoint the cause of your crash and we might be able to offer advice on how to correct this problem.