Office 2016 Mac Requirements

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As of October 13, 2020, only these versions of Office are supported for connecting to Office 365 (and Microsoft 365) services:

To use Office 2016 with Mac OS X, you must be running Mac OS X 10.10 (Yosemite) or later. For Office 2011, you must have: OS X version 10.5.8 or later 1 GB or more of RAM. Ready to install Office 2016 for Mac for Microsoft 365? This article tells you how. To use Office for Mac 2016, you must have: Mac OS X 10.10 or later. One of the following subscriptions: Office 365 Enterprise E3. Microsoft 365 Apps for business. Microsoft 365 Business Standard. Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise. The entire Microsoft Office 2016 suite for Mac includes Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Word and Outlook, though it sounds like you might only be looking for the word processor piece of that (Microsoft Word).

  • Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise (previously named Office 365 ProPlus)
  • Microsoft 365 Apps for business (previously named Office 365 Business)
  • Office 2019, such as Office Professional Plus 2019
  • Office 2016, such as Office Standard 2016

Examples of Office 365 services include Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and OneDrive for Business.

For Microsoft 365 Apps, you must be using a supported version. For a list of which versions are currently supported, see Update history for Microsoft 365 Apps.

Important

We won’t take any active measures to block other versions of the Office client, such as Office 2013, from connecting to Office 365 services, but these older clients may encounter performance or reliability issues over time.

Impact of using older Office clients to connect to Office 365 services

After October 13, 2020, ongoing investments to our cloud services will not take into account older Office clients. Over time, these Office clients may encounter performance or reliability issues. Organizations that use these older clients will almost certainly face an increased security risk and may find themselves out of compliance depending upon specific regional or industry requirements.

Therefore, administrators should update older Office clients to versions of Office supported for connecting to Office 365 services.

Upgrade resources available to administrators

We recommend that you upgrade older Office clients to a subscription version of the Office client, such as Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise. The most up-to-date subscription versions of the Office client are always supported connecting to Office 365 services.

We provide various services to help you upgrade to subscription versions of the Office client. The following list provides some examples of resources that are available:

  • Microsoft FastTrack, for migration and deployment assistance from Microsoft experts.
  • App Assure, for assistance from Microsoft with application compatibility issues.
  • Deployment guide for Microsoft 365 Apps, for technical documentation.
  • Product lifecycle dashboard and upgrade readiness dashboard, for users of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (current branch).
  • Readiness Toolkit for Office add-ins and VBA, to help identify potential issues with add-ins and VBA macros used in your organization.

Upcoming changes related to connectivity to Office 365 services

Retirement of TLS 1.0 and 1.1

After October 15, 2020, you must be using at least TLS 1.2 to connect to Office 365 services. For more information, see TLS 1.0 and 1.1 deprecation for Office 365 and Preparing for TLS 1.2 in Office 365 and Office 365 GCC.

Basic authentication with Exchange Online

There are some changes planned related to the use of Basic Authentication with Exchange Online. For more information, see Basic Authentication and Exchange Online – April 2020 Update.

Retirement of Skype for Business Online

Skype for Business Online will be retired on July 31, 2021. For more information, see Skype for Business Online retirement.

Additional information about connectivity to Office 365 services

  • Versions of Office 2019 and Office 2016 will be supported for connecting to Office 365 (and Microsoft 365) services until October 2023.
  • Connecting to Office 365 services using Office 2016 for Mac isn’t supported. That’s because Office 2016 for Mac reached its end of support on October 13, 2020.
  • This information about connecting to Office 365 services also applies to Project and Visio.
  • This information about connecting to Office 365 services does not apply to InfoPath 2013 or SharePoint Designer 2013.
  • For end of support dates for different versions of Office on various versions of Windows, see the Office configuration support matrix.
  • To discuss or learn more about end of support for Office versions, visit Microsoft Office End of Support on the Microsoft Tech Community.
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Note

Office 365 ProPlus is being renamed to Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise. For more information about this change, read this blog post.

Summary

Existing Office 2016 for Mac customers will be seamlessly upgraded to 64-bit versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote as part of the August product release (version 15.25). This affects customers of all license types: Retail, Office 365 Consumer, Office 365 Commercial, and Volume License installations.

Deployment options for the 64-bit update

AutoUpdate (MAU)

Customers who use Microsoft AutoUpdate (MAU) to keep their Office applications up-to-date will see a 'regular' monthly update notification when their selected channel is upgraded to 64-bit builds. Depending on which version is installed on the local computer, MAU will offer either a delta or full update. The update package size does not change between 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Also, MAU can deliver a delta update when applicable to update a user from 32-bit to 64-bit applications. Therefore, customers won't experience a sharp increase in download activity. For the release to the Production channel, customers will see '(64-bit)' in the update title to make them aware that this is a 64-bit update.

For information about how to use the MAU, see Check for Office for Mac updates automatically.

Manual updates

The August release of Office for Mac is available for manual download. The following file provides a 64-bit package to replace existing 32-bit applications with 64-bit variants during installation:

Download the Microsoft Office 2016 for Mac August update package now.

Virus-scan claim

Microsoft scanned this file for viruses, using the most current virus-detection software that was available on the date that the file was posted. The file is stored on security-enhanced servers that help prevent any unauthorized changes to it.

Volume License Service Center

Volume License customers typically get their Office 2016 software from the Volume License Service Center (VLSC). These builds are refreshed infrequently and are typically aligned with new language editions. The VLSC will continue to offer 32-bit installers (15.23) until November 2016. However, all updater packages that are released after August will be based on 64-bit builds. Therefore, a VLSC customer who updates either manually or through AutoUpdate will be transitioned to 64-bit builds.

More Information

64-bit only

The Mac operating system has been 64-bit for several years. Unlike for Windows, there's no choice between running a 32-bit or 64-bit version of the Mac operating system. Similarly, we won't offer a choice between 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Office 2016 for Mac. After each 'channel' is transitioned per the rollout schedule, only 64-bit builds will be available.

Effect on third-party applications and add-ins

The transition to 64-bit Office for Mac was announced in April 2016. IT Pros will want to understand which compiled add-ins are deployed to the users whom they manage so that they can assess the effect of the upgrade. The following Microsoft Office website summarizes the issues that affect the more common add-ins that are used together with Office 2016 for Mac:

Tools for inspecting product architecture

To verify the architecture of an Office application (that is, to understand whether you have a 32-bit or 64-bit build), start the application, open the Activity Monitor, and then enable the Kind column.

You can also use the file command in a terminal session to inspect the binary. For this use, type file -N <path of binary>.This method can be used with for any binary file, including third-party add-ins.

Requirements

The file command returns one of three values.

Microsoft Office For Mac 2016 Free Download

Return valueMeaning
Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_6464-bit binary
Mach-O executable i38632-bit binary
Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64FAT binary (compatible with both 32-bit and 64-bit processes)
Mach-O executable i386FAT binary (compatible with both 32-bit and 64-bit processes)

Microsoft Office 2016 System Requirement

Options for reverting to 32-bit installations

There may be situations in which the customer has to change code that's not 64-bit ready. If customers can't immediately move forward to 64-bit builds, we will make available a one-time 32-bit update for the 15.25 release in addition to the default 64-bit updates. The 32-bit updates will be available only for manual download from the Office CDN.

The latest 32-bit release of Office 2016 for Mac (15.25.160818) can be downloaded from https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=823192.

Customers who manually install the 32-bit release won't be offered the 64-bit version of 15.25 through MAU. However, MAU will offer the 64-bit version of 15.26 in September 2016. Therefore, customers have a limited time to remain on 32-bit builds.

Office 2016 Mac Download Google Drive

If a customer has already upgraded to the 64-bit update of Office for Mac 15.25 and wants to revert to the 32-bit version, follow these steps:

Microsoft Office For Mac 2016

  1. Exit all open Office 2016 applications.
  2. Start Safari, and then browse to https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=823192 to start the download of the 32-bit installer.
  3. Double-click the downloaded package, and then follow the instructions.

Mac Office 2016 System Requirements

The 64-bit installation has a build date of 160817. The 32-bit version has a build date of 160818.