Activation won’t work in excel and word

Question

after updating my Mac computer I can no longer access my excel and word, my licence is up to date but it says it’s ‘not activated’

how do I get this working again?

Answer 1

Hi, Libby Pinkess

This usually happens when the macOS update leaves Office with outdated or damaged activation information. Since the subscription is current, the license normally just needs to be refreshed.

Here are some suggestions you can try:

Close Word, Excel, and all other Office apps. Sign in to Microsoft Services & subscriptions with the email address used to purchase Microsoft 365, and confirm the subscription appears there.

Open Word, sign out of every account shown, quit Word completely, restart the Mac, then sign in again using only the account that owns the subscription. Office subscriptions activate through the associated Microsoft account, not with a product key.

If it still shows “Not Activated,” use the official Office license removal tool for Mac. This clears damaged or outdated license files. After running it, restart the Mac, open Word or Excel, and sign in again. Make sure you know the licensed account and password before using the tool.

If activation still fails, please provide the exact macOS version and any activation error code shown.

Thank you for your patience in reading, I hope this information has been helpful to you. 

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Answer 2

Hi Emily, it’s bought from Microsoft and I’m on a yearly subscription so have the latest version.