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I purchased the desktop product "Office Home 2024" for Mac in January, 2025. It had been working fine until a few days ago when it would no longer left me save or "save as". It tells me I need to activate Microsoft 365.
For the last 3 to 4 weeks, I had been signing on to Hotmail for an elderly parent, using my parent's login on my computer and occasionally opening Excel files that were sent to his email. His computer uses 365, Could that have something to do with this problem? This problem, however, didn't emerge until a some time after I began to access his account.
I checked "About Microsoft Excel" on my desktop copy and it shows "Version 16.106.1 (26021521); License: Office Home 2024". I have the same type of problem with Word, which also indicates that it is licensed. Please guide me in fixing this. I will need fairly simple instructions as my skills are limited. Thank you.
A family of Microsoft spreadsheet software with tools for analyzing, charting, and communicating data.
I signed out and tried to sign back in to Office, and got this message: "Unable to connect to the licensing helper."
How does one uninstall and reinstall Office on a mac?
When
Also, please provide me a detailed explanation of how to remove the other account from my Office apps and how to keep the problem from recurring next time I need to access that other account.
This did not respond to my questions, it simply provided the identical responses to the first time. I am not happy with this approach to product support. I hope you are not suggesting that I, an average paying customer, should be able to navigate the entire terrain of Microsoft Office troubleshooting without help.
Hello,Please use the instruction here: https://support.microsoft.com/office/how-to-remove-office-license-files-on-a-mac-b032c0f6-a431-4dad-83a9-6b727c03b193
Download and run the license removal tool
reinstall and see if it helps.
Thank you EmilyS726. I was able to uninstall the old copy and reinstall Office and it seems to have solved the immediate problem. However, the autoupdate ran and gave me an error that made no sense. My bigger question, however, is how do I prevent this problem from recurring. I need to sign in on my father's account to checks email for him (he's 101, lives in another state and needs my help) and when I open his email it requires logging in to his hotmail account. Any suggestions? I'm kind of old myself and get confused by some of this. Thanks.
If you need to check emails for your father once in a while, I would suggest that you do via web browser incognito mode, then loginto https://www.outlook.com with his credentials. By doing it this way it will not mess up any cached credentials in your device and cause account confusion.
Thank you. I have tried that and I am optimistic that it will work in the longer term.
You are welcome!
It sounds like you're experiencing an activation issue with your Office Home 2024 product on your Mac. Here are some steps you can take to troubleshoot and potentially resolve the problem:
These steps should help you regain access to saving your files in Excel and Word. If you have any further questions or need clarification on any of the steps, feel free to ask!
This did not respond to my questions, it simply provided the identical responses to the first time. I am not happy with this approach to product support. I hope you are not suggesting that I, an average paying customer, should be able to navigate the entire terrain of Microsoft Office troubleshooting without help.