Microsoft Word--pinwheel continuous

Question

My Microsoft Word on my Home PC Mac has stopped working. I get the pinwheel continuously and cannot move in the document at all.

Answer 1

Hello, thank you for reaching out to Microsoft Q&A.

1. Close or quit all Office applications.
2. Open Finder
3. Click Go in the top menu and select Go to Folder.
4. Paste the following path and press Enter. or navigate to this folder ~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data/Library/Caches
5. Copy all the folders inside the Caches folder and paste them into another location (for backup).
6. After copying them, delete the folders from the Caches folder.
7. Restart your Mac.
8. Open Microsoft Word again and try editing your documents.

Let me know if you still need more help.

Answer 2

Perform these steps in order on the Mac to resolve Word hanging with the spinning pinwheel:

1. Quit all Office apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote).
2. In Finder, on the menu bar select Go > Home.
3. Open the Library folder (if hidden, hold OPTION while clicking the Go menu, then choose Library).
4. Open Application Support > Microsoft > Office > User Templates.
5. Locate the file named Normal and move it to the Desktop.
6. Start Word and test opening/editing a document.
   • If Word now works correctly, delete the Normal file from the Desktop (Word will create a fresh default template).
   • If the issue continues, put the Normal file back if needed and proceed with additional troubleshooting such as Safe Mode and checking third‑party fonts as described in the referenced article.

If all steps fail, the document or environment may be corrupted beyond recovery and a backup or document recreation may be required.

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References:

• Word for Mac document stops responding when you try to open a document