How to reactivate Office Home & Student 2021

Question

My Office Home & Student 2021 on my MacBook Pro suddenly became read-only (Word, Excel and PowerPoint). I also have it installed on my iMac, but that is working normally. How to I reactivate Office on my MacBook?

Answer 1

The Office certificate expired 7/13/12026 and an update is required. But the minimum O/S version supported by the update is macOS 14 (Sonoma). Be sure your MacBook is macOS 14 or later. If you can not upgrade to a supported MacOs, then office is read only and there is no fix. You will need to fall back to Pages, Numbers and Keynote.

Answer 2

Hello, good day and thanks for your question. I understand that you have an Office license and you have installed it on multiple devices.

Kindly take note that a perpetual Office license can only be installed on one device at a time and therefore it will not work on the other one if it is already installed and activated on the previous device that you are using as well.

If your Office supports multiple installs, you can also check the support link below from Microsoft.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-US/Office/lifecycle/officeinstall/upgrade-macos-to-continue-receiving-microsoft-365-and-office-for-mac-updates

Answer 3

Since the iMac installation still works, the MacBook Pro issue is most likely a local activation or license cache problem on that Mac.

Try this in order:

1. Open Word on the MacBook Pro.
   • If prompted, select Sign in.
   • Sign in with the same Microsoft account that is associated with the Office Home & Student 2021 purchase.
2. If Office is already signed in but still shows read-only:
   • Quit all Office apps.
   • Reopen one Office app and check whether the activation prompt clears.
3. If it keeps asking to activate or stays read-only, reset the local credentials:
   • Open Spotlight.
   • Search for and open Keychain Access.
   • Search for Office.
   • Delete the Office data license file.
   • Open an Office app again and sign in to reactivate.
4. If that does not fix it, remove the Office license files on the MacBook Pro and reactivate.
   • Run the License Removal Tool for Mac.
   • Then restart the Mac.
   • Open Word, Excel, or PowerPoint and sign in again with the licensed account.
5. If the apps were installed from the Mac App Store, remove them and reinstall Office directly from Microsoft.
   • Close Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook.
   • In Finder > Applications, move the Office apps to Trash.
   • Reinstall using the Office installer for Mac, then activate with the one-time license.
6. If Office was removed or needs reinstalling, install it again from the account that owns the license.
   • After installation, open any Office app.
   • In the What's New window, select Get Started.
   • On Sign in to activate Office, select Sign in.
   • Enter the email and password for the account tied to the Office Home & Student 2021 purchase.

Important:

• Office Home & Student 2021 is a one-time purchase and can be installed on a single computer.
• If activation was moved to another computer, or there was a hardware change, activation on a different device can hit the maximum activation limit.
• If transferring to a different computer under the license terms, Office must be uninstalled from the original computer after activation.

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• Activate Office for Mac
• What to try if you can't install or activate Office for Mac
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• Download and install or reinstall Office 2021, Office 2019, or Office 2016
• Activate Office after reinstalling or installing on a different device