Turn off Copilot completely in Office

Question

I followed the online instructions to turn off copilot in Word and Excel and there is no longer a copilot selection in File > Options. The prompt "Select the icon or press Alt + i to draft with Copilot" is incredibly INCREDIBLY distracting.

Answer 1

To turn off Copilot completely in the desktop Office apps and remove its prompts, use both the Copilot setting (if available) and the privacy setting that disables content-analyzing experiences.

1. In each Windows app (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) where the Copilot option still exists:
   1. Go to File > Options > Copilot.
   2. Clear the Enable Copilot checkbox.
   3. Select OK, then close and restart the app.
   On Mac:
   1. Go to Word > Preferences > Authoring and Proofing Tools > Copilot.
   2. Clear Enable Copilot.
   3. Close and restart Word.
   This disables Copilot features in that app on that device. The checkbox is per‑app and per‑device, so repeat for each app and device where Copilot should be off.
2. If the Copilot page or checkbox no longer appears, or if prompts like “Select the icon or press Alt + I to draft with Copilot” still show, turn off the connected experiences that power Copilot: On Windows:
   1. In any Office app (for example, PowerPoint), go to File > Account > Account Privacy > Manage Settings.
   2. Under Connected experiences, clear Turn on experiences that analyze your content.
   3. Select OK, then close and restart the app.
   On Mac:
   1. In any Office app (for example, Word), go to Word > Preferences > Personal Settings > Privacy.
   2. In Connected Experiences > Manage Connected Experiences, clear Turn on experiences that analyze your content.
   3. Select OK, then close and restart the app.
   This setting only needs to be changed once per device; it will apply to the other Office apps on that device the next time they are opened.

If Copilot was previously disabled via privacy settings and the new Enable Copilot checkbox is used instead, the privacy settings can be reverted to their previous state as described in the same articles.

Note: Copilot cannot be turned off in the iOS, Android, or web versions of Word, Excel, or PowerPoint; only the desktop apps support these controls.

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References:

• Turn off Copilot in Microsoft 365 apps
• How to disable co-pilot on Mac - Microsoft Q&A
• How to remove Copilot from Word in Office Home & Business 2024? - Microsoft Q&A
• How to remove new Copilot in-document icon in Microsoft Word? - Microsoft Q&A
• How do I get rid of the Copilot icon on Docs as I'm working on them? - Microsoft Q&A
• Message in Word File/Options dialog box "Server drafts location...is not valid" - Microsoft Q&A