Fix: Account Doesn’t Allow Editing on a Mac

Office 365 offers users the services of popular Microsoft products such as Word, Excel, Outlook, etc, which are all among the most commonly used tools for document formatting, organization, and customization. With an ever growing customer pool, the Microsoft team consistently updates and scans these applications for bugs.

Office 365, in particular, is one of the newer subscription software released by Microsoft; and hence, is updated consistently.

Mac users have complained that despite purchasing a licensed Office 365 product with up to date Mac software, previously, well functioning, documentation tools like Word have started to crash randomly and display error messages which say: ‘Your account doesn’t allow editing on a mac. To learn more, contact your Admin about your office plan.’

What is the cause “Editing Not Allowed” on Office Applications on Mac

The problem lies with:

Before proceeding with the methods below; click “use another account” and log back into your account.

Method 1: Make sure you have the correct license.

Follow the steps to check if the license provided to you is correct and then proceed to the deletion of error-causing files by locating them in Finder and moving them to Trash.

1. Log in to Office 365 portal, using this link: http://portal.office.com
    

   

2. Then click on Settings icon and then click on Office 365.
    
3. Then click on Subscriptions.
    

   

4. Next, under the Licenses section, check if you have the ‘latest desktop version’ of Office 365.

If you don’t have the right license, contact your admin for the correct license. Otherwise, proceed as follows:

1. Connect to the Internet.
2. Now, sign out of your account and close all office applications.

   

3. Open your Library folder and then open Group Containers and move these files to Trash if they are present.

   UBF8T346G9.ms
   
   UBF8T346G9.Office
   
   UBF8T346G9.OfficeOsfWebHost

   

4. Sign in again and reopen your office applications, they should work without crashing now.

Method 2: If the problem persists, uninstall and re-install Office 365

The continued presence of the error indicates corruption of the software itself; and the best way to tackle software corruption is re-installation.

1. Open Finder and click on Applications.
    
2. Press the Command  key click to select all of the Office applications like Word, Outlook for Mac applications.

   

3. Press Ctrl and click the selected applications. Then click Move to Trash from the options window.

Method 3: Activate Office

Office 365 local applications such as Word are, at times, unable to detect that they are activated. The Microsoft teams suggest a number of root causes for this and suggest checking your subscription at this link and providing them with a screenshot of your licenses.

However, to solve the issue simply:

1. Click Activate Office and sign-in to your Microsoft account.

   

2. Wait for activation
3. Begin using your applications.