My MS365 Basic subscription will not activate.

Question

As title. I've recently renewed my MS365 sub at Basic from the previous Full access. Now I get read-only on my saved worksheets and no edit or save facilities available. When I try to activate I get message "Licence not found". Email address and payment details all check out and dashboard shows the subscription as active.

Appreciate any suggestions as I'm getting nowhere with the chatbots.

Answer 1

Microsoft 365 Basic does not include the right to install or activate the desktop Office apps (Word, Excel, etc.) on Mac or PC. It only provides 100 GB of OneDrive storage and access to the free Office web apps in a browser.

Because the subscription was changed from a plan that included desktop apps (“Full access”) to Microsoft 365 Basic, Excel on Mac is now correctly reporting “Licence not found” and running in read‑only / reduced functionality mode. The email and payment details can still show an active subscription, but that subscription no longer carries a license for the installed Office apps.

To regain full edit/save capability in the desktop Excel app on Mac, a subscription that includes Office desktop apps (for example, Microsoft 365 Personal or Family) must be purchased and associated with the same account that is signed into Office on the Mac. After that, sign out and back in within Excel (File > Account / Account settings) so it picks up the new license.

If continuing with Microsoft 365 Basic, editing can still be done using Excel for the web via a browser, but the installed Mac app will remain unlicensed.

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References:

• No license associated with my email account - Microsoft Q&A
• Unlicensed Product and activation errors in Office