Microsoft 365 License Issue? Only Able to View Documents on Mac

Hi @P

Based on the information you provided, I understand that your Microsoft 365 desktop apps on your Mac have suddenly dropped into a "View Only" mode. You are locked out of editing or saving any files, which is incredibly disruptive, especially since you've used this exact same account for years and everything worked perfectly up until a couple of weeks ago.

Even though you haven't changed anything on your end, this type of sudden lock is almost always triggered by a backend change to your assigned subscription tier.

Based on research into similar cases, a Microsoft 365 A1 license (often assigned to students or basic institutional accounts) only grants access to Office on the Web. It does not include the licensing rights required to activate and edit documents within the local Mac desktop applications. If your school or organization recently ran a subscription audit or migrated user accounts to the baseline A1 tier, your desktop apps will automatically become read-only.

Please reach out to your school or organization’s IT helpdesk. Explain that your desktop apps are in view-only mode and ask them to verify your current account assignment. Ask them if they can reassign an A3 or A5 license to your account. Both of these tiers include full desktop application editing and activation rights for Mac and Windows. Once the IT admin confirms that an A3 or A5 license is active on your profile, open Word on your Mac, click on your profile icon in the top left, Sign Out, and close the app. Reopen it and Sign In again to force a fresh license check.

In the meantime, try logging into Office web via Safari or Chrome to see if you can edit your documents using the web version while your IT team looks into this.

Let me know what your IT admin says or if you notice any other error codes when signing back in!

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