unable to edit and save my word documents because it think I do not have a subscription

Question

I have a Microsoft 365 subscription and I am logged in. In my word document I am only able to view and I am getting a message that says "Subscription Required to Edit and Save...". When I try to click "Activate" I get "unknown error (code 0x0. When I click restore previous purchase it says "No subscription found - this apple id doesn't have a paid Microsoft 365 subscription. My Microsoft subscription renewed 5/22/2026 for 1 year. Everything has been working fine until about a week ago.

Answer 1

I resolved this issue by:

1. Uninstalling my office apps
2. reinstalling them
3. ran the updater

ChatGPT was much more help and gave me a step by step process to follow and I was up and running very quickly. Basically held my hand through the problem as I do not know how to uninstall and reinstall etc. I had some additional glitches when I couldn't delete the apps that were in the trash. In comparison it would take me days to work through this with this very slow Q&A process.

Answer 2

I resolved this issue by:

1. Uninstalling my office apps
2. reinstalling them
3. ran the updater

ChatGPT was much more help and gave me a step by step process to follow and I was up and running very quickly. Basically held my hand through the problem as I do not know how to uninstall and reinstall etc. I had some additional glitches when I couldn't delete the apps that were in the trash. In comparison it would take me days to work through this with this very slow Q&A process.

Answer 3

Upon further investigation perhaps when this computer was purchased the Word was installed through an app but I don't know how that works. I know that I have a Microsoft Office 365 family subscription and I have been using it consistently since I purchased it a long time ago.

Answer 4

Thank you for the information.

Good news - your macOS is above 14, so that shouldn't be a problem.

Your Office version is actually quite outdated.

Uninstall your office apps please.

Then please reinstall. Do NOT reinstall from App Store.

Instead, go to your Microsoft account https://account.live.com > Subscription, find the Msft 365 listing and download the installer from there, then install it.

You may not need this step, but if for any odd reason it still doesn't work, download the updater and run it. https://support.microsoft.com/office/office-for-mac/troubleshoot-microsoft-autoupdate-in-microsoft-365-and-office-for-mac?apid=ets

Answer 5

My MacOS version is Sequoia 15.3.1

I am working on a MacBook Air Apple M2 8GB

My Microsoft Word for Mac is version 16.78.3 - In the "About Word" section it says "License: not activated"

I have an active Microsoft 365 family subscription that renewed 5/22/2026.