Microsoft Office Experiencing Activation Issues on Mac and PC [Fixed]

Microsoft Office appears to be experiencing activation issues on both Mac and PC today, according to several user reports on Twitter. MacRumors also received emails from multiple readers affected.

Word 2016 Mac
At least some Office 365 subscribers who have attempted to use Word, Outlook, and other apps in the Microsoft Office suite have been prompted to reactivate their license, but the process fails to complete.

Affected users have encountered various errors while Office apps hang on "activating" or "looking for licenses," which eventually leads to a window that says "no license found," with seemingly no workaround.

Hi @Microsoft, Is @Office365 having trouble with it's activation service right now? Just updated @Office for #macOS and it asked to be activated (again). Tried 3x over the past half-hour or so. pic.twitter.com/9VeLR0bVOC — Henry Ferlauto (@HTFIII) August 16, 2018

The issue appears to be affecting not only individual users, but businesses and universities and with enterprise licenses.

Update: A spokesperson for Microsoft says "our team has addressed the issue and is continuing to monitor to ensure complete resolution."

Tags: Microsoft, Microsoft Office

Top Rated Comments

pete2106

67 months ago

I moved on from Office long ago...

I hadn't used Office in a long time but I was given an Office 365 account for University and started using it again. It's really fantastic. Office.com blows icloud.com out of the water.

Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Jimmy Bubbles

Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)

btrach144

I'm curious as to what you use now and have you tried office again recently? Office really has turned around in the last 3-4 years.

Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)

MauiPa

IMO Office has a UI designed by kindergarten kids and a box of crayons, and Excel crashes way too much on Windows, never used Mac version, does it crash a lot too? Maybe it's just time to bite the bullet and move on. Why pay for something that is worse than all the free software out there?

Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)

I use the local applications on a Mac which are fantastic. Only had one issue with page sizing in Word but other than that, I would absolutely recommend it. I also use the web applications on Windows. I've not used them a great deal, it's more to access email and cloud storage so I can't say how good they are for editing, but it's great to see that they are available to me on any computer.