How to Uninstall Microsoft Office on a Mac

Are you done with Microsoft 365 (formerly known as Office)? Maybe you're moving on from an outdated version, or simply unwilling to pay for another year of support. Here's how to remove the Office suite from your Mac altogether.

Uninstall Office for Mac by Deleting the App

The simplest way to remove Microsoft 365 or Microsoft Office for Mac apps from your Mac is to delete the apps from your Applications folder using Finder. This is the standard way of deleting Mac apps, but it isn't exhaustive and normally requires a follow-up to delete junk that gets left behind.

To begin, open a Finder window and click on Applications in the sidebar. You can also hit Shift+Command+G and type

/Applications 

followed by Enter.

Now find the apps you want to delete. For Microsoft 365, Office 2019, and Office 2016, apps will be labeled individually as Microsoft Excel, Microsoft OneNote, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Word, and OneDrive.

If you're using Microsoft Office for Mac 2011, these apps will be in a separate folder. Highlight the items you want to delete by holding the Command key and clicking.

You can now use the Command+Delete keyboard shortcut to send the apps to the Trash (or right-click and choose "Move to Trash" if you'd rather). To delete the apps once and for all, empty the Trash either by opening it and clicking "Empty" or by right-clicking and choosing "Empty Trash" from the dock.

The Microsoft Office for Mac or Microsoft 365 applications are now removed from your Mac, and the space they were occupying can be used for other things.

This is probably good enough for most users, but if you want to completely remove all signs of Office or 365, there are some additional files you can get rid of too.

Completely Delete All Office and 365 Files From macOS

There are different steps to finalize the removal of Microsoft 365 and the older Office for Mac 2011.

Finish Removing Microsoft 365, Office 2019, and Office 2016 for Mac

In addition to removing the application files, Office 2016 and later also leaves behind some files in your Library folder. You can get there using Finder, simply open a Finder window and hit Shift+Command+G then enter

~/Library/Containers 

and hit Enter.

On macOS 11 or newer, highlight (by holding the Command key and clicking) these files:

• Microsoft Error Reporting
• Microsoft Excel
• com.microsoft.netlib.shipassertprocess
• com.microsoft.Office365ServiceV2
• Microsoft Outlook
• Microsoft PowerPoint
• com.microsoft.RMS-XPCService
• Microsoft Word
• Microsoft OneNote (assuming you want to remove OneNote too)

On macOS 10 or newer, highlight (by holding the Command key and clicking) these:

• com.microsoft.errorreporting
• com.microsoft.Excel
• com.microsoft.netlib.shipassertprocess
• com.microsoft.Office365ServiceV2
• com.microsoft.Outlook
• com.microsoft.Powerpoint
• com.microsoft.RMS-XPCService
• com.microsoft.Word
• com.microsoft.onenote.mac

Now delete the files using the Command+Delete keyboard shortcut. Finally, hit Shift+Command+G and enter

~/Library/Group Containers 

followed by enter. Highlight and delete the following, if present:

• UBF8T346G9.ms
• UBF8T346G9.Office
• UBF8T346G9.OfficeOsfWebHost

Finish Removing Office for Mac 2011

If you're removing Office for Mac 2011, there are a few different files you'll need to delete to remove Office completely. Open Finder and hit Shift+Command+G then enter

~Library/Preferences 

followed by enter. Delete files starting with "com.microsoft" from this folder.

In Finder hit Shift+Command+G, enter

~Library/Preferences 

, and do the same to files starting with "com.microsoft" in there too (except for .com.microsoft.autoupdate2.plist if you are still using Office for Mac 2016). Next, open the "ByHost" folder within the Preferences folder and also delete "com.microsoft" files.

Next, hit Shift+Command+G in Finder and enter

~Library/Application Support/Microsoft 

followed by Enter. Delete the "Office" folder.

Finally, remove licensing helpers from the main Library folder. Hit Shift+Command+G in Finder and type

/Library 

to open your main Library folder. Now delete the following from the following folders within Library.

• com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist from Library/LaunchDemons
• com.microsoft.office.licensing.plist from Library/Preferences
• com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper from Library/PrivilegedHelperTools
• the "Microsoft" folder from Library/Application Support
• the "Microsoft" folder from Library/Fonts
• any files that begin "Office2011_" from Library/Receipts