Table of Contents
Introduction
While Microsoft Office 365 is all-inclusive software featuring robust apps, some Mac users often run into an issue where they receive a message stating: "Your account doesn't allow editing on a Mac". This alert prevents users from editing their documents and can be due to several reasons - Microsoft might not be recognizing your Office 365 License, some corrupt files may exist on your Mac, or Office applications may have difficulty detecting their activation status. If you are facing these issues, here are ways that can help you troubleshoot them.
Checking the Microsoft Office 365 Subscription
One possible reason behind this error could be that your Microsoft Office 365 license has expired or is no longer recognized. In order to check your license, you need to sign into your Microsoft account and navigate to Services & subscriptions. Here, under the Office 365 section, you should be able to view the status of your subscription. If it's expired, make sure to renew it.
Debugging methods
Sign out and sign back into the app
Another potential solution is to sign out of the Office 365 app where you're experiencing the issue, and then sign back in. You can do this by navigating to the app's menu, select your name or email address, click "Sign Out", then sign back in with your proper credentials. This method might force the system to recalculate your permissions and restore editing rights if the problem was a transient glitch.
Removal of potentially corrupt files
There is a possibility that your system might house some corrupt or superfluous files that are causing this error. You can access these files through Finder on your Mac by going to Library > Group Containers and then search for a folder that ends in "Office". Once located, move these files to the trash and empty it. When you reopen your office application, new files will be generated, which could solve your problem.
Applying license removal tool
Sometimes, accumulated license files can trigger this error. A clean removal of these files may solve the issue. For Mac users, there's the license removing tool—a part of the Office 365 installation package. Just follow the on-screen process after launching this tool and it will remove all license files from your Mac.
Reinstalling Microsoft Office Apps
If all these methods fail, you may need to uninstall and reinstall your Microsoft Office apps as a final solution. Before uninstalling, be sure to sign out of your Office 365 account. Navigate to your Applications folder and manually move the Office apps to the trash. After uninstalling, you can reinstall the necessary Office apps from the App Store. Be sure to log back in with the correct license information.
