Office 2016 For Mac Unable To Activate

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  1. How To Activate Office 365 On Mac
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So, I was having this BRUTALLY annoying issue on my macs (when I work from home, I work on my mac) where, every time I launched Outlook 2016, I would be prompted to login with my credentials... Just super annoying and unnecessary.

Theres a ton of documentation on 'how to fix this' but a lot of it misses an important step (also, a facepalm step).

I recently bought a new 5K iMac and am setting up apps. I was limping along on Microsoft Office 2008 and decided to buy Office 2016 for the new machine. I'm immediately turned off by the fact that I had to create a Microsoft account to install the software (using a key card bought from Amazon). In the top menu bar select Finder Applications and scroll down to the Microsoft Office apps. Open any Office app, like Microsoft Word and in the What's New box that opens, select Get Started. On the Sign in to activate Office screen, select Sign in. 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. 'You need to activate Office for Mac within X days' after activating already. Microsoft is aware of and currently working on this issue. If you've activated Office for Mac 2016 but are still seeing a message that says 'You need to activate Office for Mac within X days,' please try these steps to resolve your issue: Run the License Removal Tool. Open any Office app. You can activate Office from any of the included Office apps, such as Microsoft Word. To open Word, open Finder, select the Applications folder, and then double-click Microsoft Word in the 'Microsoft Office' section.

6 Steps total

Step 1: Open the Keychain

Theres a bunch of ways to do it, but ultimately, the easiest way is to press CMD+Space, to open spotlight, then search 'Keychain Access'.

Step 2: Clear old items relating to Exchange/MS login in the keychain

According to a Microsoft Representative, the best option here is:

Make sure you quit Outlook and other Office apps.

Search 'Exchange' under Login --> All Items and delete everything (NOT EVERYTHING - take a look and make sure you're only deleting entries that are in some way related to Microsoft)

Office 2016 for mac unable to activate windows 10

Search 'Office' and delete everything
Search 'ADAL' and delete everything

Step 3: Open Outlook & Login

Yea, I know, we're trying to fix this - but you have to log in this ONE more time...

Step 4: Open Outlook Preferences from the menu

Click Outlook -> Preferences in the menu bar

Step 5: Open Accounts

Open the Accounts Section...

Step 6: Finally... Add your password

How to activate office 2016 for mac

Seriously - this is critical! Add your password in the password field for the account in question, then close the preferences window.

NOW - when you restart Outlook you SHOULD NOT have to login!

While this isn't the most difficult or pressing issue in the world, it most definitely is annoying! I hope this guide helps some folks!

References

Office 2016 for mac unable to activate windows 10

How To Activate Office 365 On Mac

  • michaelkummer.com
  • Microsoft TechNet Discussion
How

How To Activate Microsoft Office 2016 Free

5 Comments

Office 2016 For Mac Unable To Activate Software

  • Chipotle
    Tony Bongiorno Jul 19, 2017 at 06:07pm

    Thanks for posting. I've seen this quite a few times from multiple users

  • Sonora
    TMagro Apr 8, 2019 at 07:45pm

    Tried and still not working for me. Box will not go away. :(

  • Pimiento
    spicehead-pn1ix Jul 16, 2019 at 04:02pm

    Thanks for posting, but the login box still appears. A question -- when I searched Exchange, should I delete the Private Exchange Key (two of them) and Public Exchange Key (also two files)?

  • Pimiento
    spicehead-xgxh2 Aug 6, 2019 at 06:33am

    still not working for me. I have 3 office 365 accounts, and every time I should enter the password 3 times for each account. It is really annoying

  • Sonora
    earthsound Mar 31, 2020 at 06:22pm

    A couple of steps we added to our recipe to workaround this longstanding issue:

    - Open Keychain Access > View > Show Invisible Items
    - After deleting entries in Keychain related to office, exchange, and adal > restart computer.
    - In Keychain > lock the login entry.
    - Open Outlook > input password to allow access to Keychain again
    - Continue with steps to input password into the password textbox under Tools > Accounts > mailbox(es) having issues
    - Restart Outlook

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Microsoft Office For Mac 2016

Microsoft maintains that you don't need to uninstall previous versions of Office before installing a newer release. However, if you are upgrading to Office 2016 and would like to remove Office 2011 first, see How tocompletely remove Office for Mac 2011.

The following explains how to install and activate Office 2016 on a Mac.

Activate Office 2019 On Mac

Installation and activation

  1. Go to Office 2016 for Mac in IUware. (You'll need to log into IUware, even if you are already logged into CAS.)
  2. Click Get product key to see your assigned product key.
  3. On the Office setup page, enter your 25-character product key from IUware, and click Get Started.
  4. On the 'Welcome to Office Online' page:
    • If you already have a Microsoft account: At Office Online, enter your Microsoft account email address and password. Proceed to step 5.
    • If you don't have a Microsoft account: Create one, as follows:
      1. At the bottom of the page, click Sign up now and complete the required fields. UITS recommends creating an account with your primary IU email address (e.g., username@iu.edu) to ensure the least margin of error.
      2. You'll receive an email message requesting verification. Follow the instructions to finish creating the account.
        If the email message does not arrive within a few minutes, use the resend email option.
      3. Log into Office Online with your newly created Microsoft account. After selecting your country/region and language, click Continue. When prompted, enter a first and last name for the account.
  5. Verify that 'Microsoft Office Home & Business 2016 for Mac' shows on your account page.
  6. On the Microsoft page, click Install to download the installation file. Alternatively, download the installation file from IUware directly.
    The Microsoft account must show the 'Microsoft Office Home & Business 2016 for Mac' registration in step 5. If this is not completed, it will not be possible to activate the Office 2016 product after installation.

    If you downloaded the .dmg file from IUware, open the Finder, select Downloads, and then open Microsoft Office 2016 Installer.pkg. Click Continue.

  7. Once Office is installed, a new window will open. Click Get started >.
  8. You will be prompted to sign in to activate Office. Select Sign In, and then enter the email address and password for the account that you activated with the Office 2016 product key from IUware.
  9. Enter your Microsoft account email address and click Next.
  10. Choose Microsoft account.
  11. Finish the activation process by signing in with your Microsoft credentials.
  12. In the 'How would you like Office to look' interface, choose Colorful or Classic, and then click Continue >. You should then have full use of Office 2016.

Troubleshooting

To troubleshoot installation or activation errors, see the Microsoft Guide.