Activate Microsoft Office 2016 For Mac
If Office installation fails, see What to try if you can't install or activate Office 2016 for Mac. Launch an Office for Mac app and start the activation process Click the Launchpad icon in the Dock to display all of your apps. Click the Microsoft Word icon in the Launchpad. If you have a product key of Office, we suggest you open follow this article to link the product key to your account: Where to enter your Office product key. Then sign in to Office for Mac 2016 and activate it. Office 2016 for mac can't find license I HAVE PAID FOR MY 2016 OFFICE FOR MAC unfortunately my office says it needs activation from Microsoft. I logged in under my correct login name but when it searches for my license, they say that there is no license under my name.
- How To Activate Office 2016
- Activate Office 2016 Without Microsoft Account
- Cannot Activate Office 2016
Applies to:Office for Mac, Office 2019 for Mac, Office 2016 for Mac
To use Office for Mac in your organization, it needs to be activated. How you activate Office for Mac depends on whether your organization has an Office 365 plan or has a volume license agreement. But in both cases your users won't have to enter any product keys.
Before you begin activating, if you haven't already, you'll need to redeem and install Office on your PC or Mac. 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.
Note
If you're an Office user trying to activate a personal copy of Office for Mac, follow these instructions instead of reading this article.
Activate Office 365 versions of Office for Mac
If your organization has an Office 365 plan, make sure you assign each user a license for Office before you deploy Office for Mac to your users. If you don't assign a user a license, you can still deploy Office for Mac to that user, but the user won't be able to activate and use Office.
For Office 365 customers, Office for Mac activates by contacting the Office Licensing Service on the internet. The Office Licensing Service keeps track of which users are licensed and how many computers they've installed Office on.
After you deploy Office for Mac, your users are prompted to activate Office the first time they use it. Make sure users are connected to the internet when they activate Office.
On the Sign in to Activate Office screen, users should select Sign In, and then enter their email address and password. After they sign in, users may see an alert asking for permission to access the Microsoft identity stored in their keychain. They should select Allow or Always Allow to continue.
While you can deploy Office for Mac for your users, your users need to sign in and activate Office for Mac for themselves. That's to ensure that the Office Licensing Service properly associates Office for Mac with the correct licensed user.
A program on the Mac, the Office365ServiceV2 daemon, runs once a day to check the user's subscription status. The computer must be connected to the internet to contact the Office Licensing Service. If the computer can't contact the Office Licensing Service after nine days, the user sees a warning message when working in an app.
If the computer can't contact the Office Licensing Service after 30 days, Office goes into reduced functionality mode. This means that the user can open, view, and print existing documents in an Office app, but can't create or edit documents. The user also sees a message in the app that most features aren't available. After the user connects to the internet and the subscription status is verified, all the features of Office are available again.
How To Activate Office 2016
For each user that you've assigned a license to in Office 365, you can deploy and activate Office for Mac on up to five Macs for the user. If you need to provide Office for Mac on a sixth computer for a user, you need to deactivate an existing installation first. Deactivating an installation doesn't remove Office for Mac from the computer. Instead, the installation goes into reduced functionality mode.
Users can sign into the Office 365 portal to deactivate an existing installation by going to My account > Install status > Manage installs. Or, you can deactivate an installation as an Office 365 administrator. Sign into the Office 365 portal, go to the admin center, and then go to Users > Active Users. Select the user, and then choose Edit for the Office installs property of the user.
Activate volume licensed versions of Office for Mac
To activate a volume licensed version of Office 2019 for Mac or Office 2016 for Mac, use the Volume License (VL) Serializer. You can download the VL Serializer by signing into the Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC). You run the VL Serializer on each computer. By doing this, your users won't see any activation prompts when they first open Office 2019 for Mac or Office 2016 for Mac.
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For more information, see Overview of the Volume License (VL) Serializer.
Related topics
-->Applies to:Office 2019 for Mac, Office 2016 for Mac
The Volume Serializer (VL) is used to activate Office 2019 for Mac or Office 2016 for Mac as a volume licensed version. It's an approximately 4 mb package file that you run on a user's computer, either before or after you've installed Office.
Download the Volume License (VL) Serializer from the VLSC
To download the VL Serializer, do the following:
- Sign in to the Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC).
- Select the Download and Keys tab.
- Depending on the version that you're deploying, search for 'Office 2019 for Mac Standard' or 'Office 2016 for Mac Standard.'
- Select the Download link in the results panel.
- Select the Continue button at the bottom of the window.
- Select the icon (circle with download arrow) to download the VL Serializer .iso file.
- Once the download is complete, mount the .iso file to extract the VL Serializer package file.
Make sure you have the correct VL serializer version for the version of Office that you're deploying to your users.
| Version | File name |
|---|---|
| Office 2019 for Mac | Microsoft_Office_2019_VL_Serializer.pkg |
| Office 2016 for Mac | Microsoft_Office_2016_VL_Serializer.pkg |
Activate Office 2016 Without Microsoft Account
Then, deploy and run the VL Serializer package file on each computer that you want to activate Office as a volume licensed version.
Note
- You can't use the VL Serializer for Office 2019 for Mac to activate a volume licensed version of Office 2016 for Mac.
- Volume licensed versions of Office 2019 for Mac have version numbers of 16.17 or higher. Volume licensed versions of Office 2016 for Mac have version numbers of 16.16 or lower, such as 16.16.2 or 16.15.
Cannot Activate Office 2016
Additional information about the VL Serializer
- The volume license is located in the /Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.office.licensingV2.plist directory.
- The licensing plist generated by the VL Serializer contains data that's encrypted by using the serial number of the boot drive on the computer where it was generated. Upon each Office application launch, the plist is decrypted by using the current boot drive serial number as the decryption key. If the data cannot be decrypted (for example, boot drive serial number is different), Office will go into an unlicensed state without warning.
- Because the license plist file is encrypted using information from the computer on which it's installed, you can't copy it to a different computer to activate Office on that computer.
- There's a single VL Serializer package that contains a single key that's shared between all volume licensed customer installations.
- The VL Serializer package contains a binary executable that's named 'Microsoft Office Setup Assistant.' It's this executable that actually activates the volume license.
- If you install the volume licensed version of Office 2016 for Mac from the .iso file downloaded from the VLSC, you don't need to run the VL Serializer. That installer package already has the VL Serializer functionality built-in. But, we recommend that you always download and install the most current version that's available on the Office Content Delivery Network (CDN) on the internet. For more information, see Download Office for Mac to your local network.
- The VL Serializer package is compatible with mobile device management (MDM) servers such as Microsoft Intune, Jamf Pro, or FileWave.