Trying to Install Office 2024, but Installer prompts say Office 365

Question

Trying to Install Office 2024, but Installer prompts say Office 365

Gary Tandberg 0

I purchased Office 2024 and installed it on a new Mac. However, the installer said I was installing an Office 365 product. When I go into Word, I see a message to activate Office 365 to edit or create documents. My installation includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Notes, and Teams. Do I have the wrong version installed? How do I get 2024 installed instead of 365?

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2026-06-15T21:24:02.0866667+00:00

After installing a stand alone Office (2024 or even the 2021), when you open Word, you may get a yellow bar near the top that says "Activate Microsoft 365 to Create and Edit". While hesitant to click, if you do click, I got the option to *NOT download 365. Instead two choices appeared in a pop up: "Already bought Office? Sign in" & "Buy Microsoft 365". After signing in, it finally activated and I was able to create and edit again. .....I've had plenty of panic with these installs so hopefully this helps someone. (I've purchased about 6-7 of these stand alones over the years)

2 answers

Your answer

Spell 0 Reputation points

2026-06-15T21:24:02.0866667+00:00

After installing a stand alone Office (2024 or even the 2021), when you open Word, you may get a yellow bar near the top that says "Activate Microsoft 365 to Create and Edit". While hesitant to click, if you do click, I got the option to *NOT download 365. Instead two choices appeared in a pop up: "Already bought Office? Sign in" & "Buy Microsoft 365". After signing in, it finally activated and I was able to create and edit again. .....I've had plenty of panic with these installs so hopefully this helps someone. (I've purchased about 6-7 of these stand alones over the years)

Answer 1

Kayece Jan Mae Amizola 16,765 Independent Advisor

Hi,

Please uninstall both of the Office 2024 and Microsoft 365 and make sure that it is a clean uninstallation, including signing out of the apps. After uninstalling the apps, please restart your device.

Install Office 2024 and activate it.

Please let me know how it goes. I look forward to your response.

Stay Safe!

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Answer 2

Office 2024 and Microsoft 365 use the same underlying apps and installer on Mac, so it is normal for the installer and the apps (Word, Excel, etc.) to show Microsoft 365 branding even when the license is for Office 2024.

What is happening in this scenario is that the apps are still associated with the old Microsoft 365 subscription (from work) and are prompting to activate that subscription instead of using the new Office 2024 license. The fix is to remove the old Office/Microsoft 365 licensing and then sign in or activate with the new Office 2024 license.

Follow this approach:

Remove the old Office/Microsoft 365 license from the Mac so it is no longer registered to the previous (work) account.
Make sure the old work account is fully signed out of all Office apps.
Start one of the Office apps (for example, Word) and activate using the account or method associated with the Office 2024 purchase (for example, the Microsoft account used to redeem the product key at https://microsoft365.com/setup, or the activation flow provided with the Office 2024 purchase).

Once the old license is removed and the new Office 2024 license is registered and used for activation, the same apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.) will run as Office 2024 rather than requiring an Office 365 subscription, even though the UI may still show Microsoft 365 branding.

If activation still fails or continues to prompt for Office 365, completely uninstall Office from the Mac, remove any remaining Office-related data, then reinstall and activate again with the Office 2024 license.

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