How Long Do I Need To Activate The Office After System Activation
Alayna Rother
You can find troubleshooting steps for common installation or activation issues for Microsoft 365 for Mac here. If the issue you're having is not in these lists, you may also be experiencing an emerging issue. See the Mac section in Fixes or workarounds for recent Office installation or activation issues for help and updates on these recent issues.
To complete any of the steps below, you'll need the email address and password associated with your active and licensed Microsoft 365 subscription or your one-time purchase of Microsoft 365 for Mac. This may be your Microsoft Account or the account you received from your organization. You will also have already downloaded and installed the Office suite.
Check to make sure your internet is working on the Mac you're trying to install on. You can do this by opening your internet browser and going to www.microsoft.com. If the page loads, your internet connection is working.
Are you using the correct Microsoft Account (MSA)? Sign out and sign in again with the account associated with your Microsoft 365 subscription. You may need to choose "Sign in with another account" to proceed.
"Installation limit reached
Your account has been used to activate Office on the maximum number of computers allowed. Visit your account page to manage your settings and then return here to retry activation."
If you see repeated prompts to grant access to the keychain when starting an Microsoft 365 for Mac app, Office may have been moved to a location other than the default /Applications folder. Other symptoms may be that you see Microsoft 365 for Mac repeatedly asking you to sign into your account or you receive an "Authentication Expired" error.
If you're trying to activate a one-time purchase of Office for Mac and you get the above error message, this is because your PriviligedHelperTools folder is incorrectly not accessible to your user account.
Find the PriviligedHelperTools folder. If there is a red dot/stop icon next to the name, it is not accessible. Fix it using the instructions in the Fix permissions for the PriviligedHelperTools folder below.
If you're trying to activate Microsoft 365 for Mac and have received error code 0xD000001c, this is because your Mac's name contains invalid characters when being sent to our server. To fix this issue, update your Mac's name to remove the invalid characters:
If you own multiple licenses and have installed using the incorrect one, or you had a one-time install of Office for Mac and then purchase Microsoft 365, you might need to remove licenses attached to your suite of Office and reactivate to ensure you're getting all the benefits of Microsoft 365.
Still not working? Open Safari and go to Preferences > Security tab and make sure Enable Javascript is selected. Then go to the Privacy tab > Manage Website Data > Remove all. Start the download again using Safari.
If you bought a one-time purchase of Office for PC instead of for Mac (or vice versa), you'll get an "Unsupported operating system" error when installing. If this is the case, you'll need to contact Microsoft support.
This article is updated based on your feedback. If you still need help installing or activating Microsoft 365 for Mac, tell us about your issue in detail by leaving us a comment below and we'll try to address it in the future.
If Office activation fails, you'll see Unlicensed Product or Non-commercial use / Unlicensed Product in the title bar of your Office apps, and most features of Office are disabled. To restore all features of Office, you'll need to fix the problem that's causing activation to fail.
Please try signing in using all your personal email addresses in case you bought Office using a different email address. If you're at work or school, you may need to log in using your work or school account instead of your personal email account.
To check if your Microsoft account is associated with Office, sign in to Services & subscriptions. Your Office product or Microsoft 365 subscription should be listed there. If it's not, your email address won't work for signing in to Office.
If Office still won't activate, try running an online repair as described in Repair an Office application to fix up the remaining install of Office. If you still can't activate, proceed to the next step.
Select Set time automatically and, if shown, Set time zone automatically. If you don't have the option to set the time zone automatically, make sure your local time zone is shown in Time zone.
For information about how to turn off your antivirus software, check your antivirus manufacturer's website. Uninstalling your antivirus software may also help. Don't forget to reinstall it after Office is finished installing and if you turned it off, be sure to turn it on again.
In Manual proxy setup, you can choose to use a proxy server. Generally, it will be off and if you slide it to On, be sure to select Save. And if it was off by default before you turned it on, be sure to slide back to Off when you've finished using it.
To ensure you have Microsoft Office back after a system restore, understanding the process and its impact on the software is crucial. In this section, we explain system restore and its effects on Microsoft Office. This knowledge will serve as the foundation for tackling the subsequent sub-sections, which provide solutions on reinstalling and saving Microsoft Office after a system restore.
System restore is a useful feature that allows users to go back in time. For Microsoft Office, this means all changes and updates since the selected restore point will be undone. This can have an effect on how the program works and if certain features are available.
To reinstall Microsoft Office after system restore, follow these steps:
Check if Microsoft Office is still installed, retrieve the product key, uninstall and remove all traces of Office, download and reinstall the software, and finally, activate Office using the retrieved product key.
Choose the version that matches your previous installation and follow the prompts to complete the installation process. Download only from official sources as it ensures safety and legitimacy of the software. Unknown and unauthorized websites can be a security risk.
Using cloud storage or an external hard drive also provides extra benefits. You can access your documents from any device with internet connection (cloud storage) or easily transfer them between computers (external hard drive).
Many users have been relying on this method to save their Microsoft Office files over time. They feel secure knowing their documents are backed up and accessible even when facing system restorations or unexpected events.
Office LTSC 2021 is separate from Office that's available through Microsoft 365 (or Office 365) plans. For example, if you've deployed Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise to the users in your organization, you don't need Office LTSC 2021. Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise already has all the features that are included in Office LTSC 2021, along with many more features that aren't in Office LTSC 2021.
The Allow the use of additional optional connected experiences in Office" policy setting is also available for Office LTSC 2021. But that's not considered a change because that policy setting is already available for volume licensed versions of Office 2019.
Users with the Teams client app from their existing Office LTSC 2021 installation are prompted to sign in upon launching. Users with a Microsoft Entra account linked to Teams, Microsoft 365, or Office 365 can sign in using their licensed account.
The Exploratory experience is for users in an organization who have existing Microsoft Entra accounts but aren't licensed for Teams. For more information, see Manage the Microsoft Teams Exploratory license.
Power View isn't available for the version of Excel included with Office LTSC 2021. Power BI is the recommended tool for visual data exploration and reporting. For more information, see Roadmap for Power View in Excel.
You can use the same software distribution tools, such as Microsoft Configuration Manager, to deploy and update Office LTSC 2021 that you currently use to deploy and update volume licensed versions of Office 2019.
Also, how you activate volume licensed versions of Office remains the same. For example, by using Key Management Service (KMS) or Multiple Activation Key (MAK). For more information, see Overview of volume activation of Office.
To get on-going feature updates for the desktop versions of Project and Visio, you should consider moving to a subscription plan for those products. For more information, see Project Plan 3/Project Plan 5 and Visio Plan 2.
The Teams client app included with Office LTSC 2021 will continue to receive new features. The update process for Teams is different than the update process for the other Office apps, such as Word and Excel. For more information, see Teams update process.
We recommend that you uninstall existing versions of Office before you deploy Office LTSC 2021. You can remove most Office products that were installed with Windows Installer (MSI), such as Office 2016 or Office 2013, from the device as part of the installation of Office LTSC 2021. For more information, see Remove existing versions of Office before installing Office LTSC 2021.
Active Internet Connection
To redeem and activate Microsoft Office that is installed on your computer, you need an active Internet connection. If your computer shows connectivity issues, use the Windows Network Troubleshooter to correct the problem.