Office For Mac 2016 Uninstall Tool

This content has been archived, and is no longer maintained by Indiana University. Information here may no longer be accurate, and links may no longer be available or reliable.

How to Recover Office 2016 Product Key after Installation. How can I find or recover Office 2016 professional product key after installation, when I want to reformat my computer or reinstall Office 2016 on a new PC? Now in this article, we will list all the possible ways that you can find Office product key online or on your computer. Way 1: Find Office 2016 product key in system registry. Uninstall Office 2016 This script lets you uninstall or remove so manually Office 2016.

Note: Currently, the Remove Office tool is notavailable for Office 2011. To perform a manual uninstall, refer to theMicrosoft Knowledge Base document How to completelyremove Office for Mac 2011.

To remove earlier versions of Microsoft Office from your MacOS X computer, use the Remove Office tool provided byMicrosoft.

Note: The Remove Office tool will not deletedocuments you have created with Office programs unless they arelocated in the application folders for Microsoft Office. If you havedocuments you want to keep in any of the application folders, movethem to a different folder before using the tool.

To find the Remove Office tool, open the Microsoft Office2008 folder or the Microsoft Office 2004 folder,and then open the Additional Tools folder.
For instructions, read the Read Me file in theRemove Office folder.
When you run Remove Office, it will allow you to removeinstallations of Microsoft Office 98 through 2008, as well as relatedpreferences and system files. Once you have run the program, itplaces the removed Office components in the Trash.

Microsoft has been readying its latest update to Office for Mac, and recently released its first preview. We decided to give it a whirl and wanted uninstall Office 2011 to avoid any conflicts. Much to our surprise, uninstalling Office 2011 for Mac is a terribly complicated affair.

It’s no great mystery why we’d want to uninstall Office 2011. It’s just never felt like a real OS X application, or even a decent version of Office. Yes, it gets the job done but the interface is a mess and downright ugly.

The new version of Office by contrast is clean and much more Office-looking.

Speaking of Windows, uninstalling Office on it is a simple matter of opening Programs & Features from the Control Panel and removing the application there. It takes a few minutes and is entirely automated.

Removing Office 2011 on Mac however, can be best described as a labyrinthine process. Microsoft lays the process out in this support document, but it’s a little difficult to follow.

It won’t hurt your Mac to simply drag the application folder to the trash and move on from there, but the Office installation (which is automated) places files all over your Mac, so if you really want it all gone, you have to root around your hard drive and delete everything by hand.

Office For Mac Download

Step Zero: Quit Everything

Publisher For Mac

The first thing you need to do before you can remove Office 2011 is to make sure none of its applications are running. The easiest way to do this is to simply use “Command + Tab” to switch between running apps.

If any are running, simply use “Command + Q” to quit them.

Remove the Office Folder and Dock Icons

Open your Applications folder and locate the “Microsoft Office 2011 folder. Click and drag it to the trash.

While you’re at it, you can also remove the Office icons from your Dock (if you have any pinned there). The simplest way to do this is to click and drag them out of the Dock.

Office For Mac 2016 Preview

Microsoft divides this into two steps. You could simply stop here Office would be basically uninstalled, but as we said before, there’s a lot of little files that Office writes all over you drive. If you want it all gone, roll up your sleeves and get to it.

Removing the Preferences, Subscription File, and License

Once you remove the application files, it’s time to start removing all the little files spread throughout your system. One of the best ways to navigate your way through the Finder, is to use the Go menu.

To remove the preferences, open the Library in your Home folder. Click “Go,” hold the “Option” key, and click “Library.”

Navigate to the “Preferences” and arrange everything by Name. It’s probably a good idea to change your view in Finder to a list.

Select all the files (you can hold “Shift” to select a range of files) that start with “com.microsoft” and drag them to the trash.

Remember, these preference files contain customizations you’ve made for things like toolbars, keyboard shortcuts, and custom dictionaries. If you remove them and later reinstall Office 2011, you will need to redo your customizations.

While you’re in this folder, you can remove the subscriptions files. Open the “ByHost” folder, arrange everything by Name and drag anything starting with “com.microsoft” to the Trash.

When you install Office and you input your license info, it creates a file. Open “Computer” from the Go menu (you can use “Shift + Command + C”) , double-click to open your system drive (it might be “Macintosh HD” unless you’ve renamed it), then open “Library -> Preferences” and drag “com.microsoft.office.licensing.plist” to the Trash.

Microsoft recommends you restart your computer at this point to remove any files that are cached in memory. This will be necessary before you can purge everything in the Trash.

Removing the Application Support Folder and Receipts

With your computer restarted, open “Computer” again from the Go menu, then your system drive, and “Library -> Application Support.”

Office For Mac 2016 License Removal Tool

Drag the “Microsoft” folder to the Trash; you will need to enter your system password to complete this action.

Next, while you’re still in that Library folder, open the “Receipts” folder and see if there are any files that begin with “Office2011_” (there probably will not be) and drag them to the Trash as well.

If you’re using using OS X Snow Leopard (10.6) or OS Lion (10.7), then you will need to Go to(“Shift + Command + G”) the Finder folder “/private/var/db/receipts.”

Arrange the files in this folder by Name and drag every one that begins with “com.microsoft.office” to the Trash.

Removing Custom Templates and Fonts

We’re almost done, there are just a few steps more to go. The next thing we’ll need to do is remove any custom templates you might have created. If you want to save these then you can simply relocate them to a safe location.

Open the “Library” folder from the Go menu once more by holding down the “Option” key.

Navigate to “Application Support -> Microsoft” and drag the “Office” folder to the Trash.

Next, you’re going to again reopen the “Computer” location, click on you system drive (Macintosh HD by default), and then “Library -> Fonts.”

Drag the “Microsoft” folder to the Trash. At this point, you can empty the Trash, unless you want to delete your Microsoft User Data folder in the next step.

Completely Uninstall Office 2016 Mac

Moving or Deleting Your Microsoft User Data

Deleting your Microsoft User Data folder is optional. If you remove this folder and you will lose all your Outlook data, among other things.

This user data folder can be found in your Documents.

It is recommend that if you want to keep this data folder, you drag it to a safe location such as the Desktop or archive it to a cloud folder.

Regardless, upon finishing this last step, restart your computer once more and you’re done removing Office 2011 from your Mac.

RELATED:How to Instantly Go to Locations and Folders in OS X

We hope that Microsoft includes some kind of ability in Office 2016 for Mac that will allow you to uninstall or upgrade from the previous installation. Right now however, to completely remove Office 2011, this is your best, albeit annoying, course of action.

Have anything you’d like to add such as a question or comment? Please use our discussion forum to leave your feedback.