Forum Discussion
Office Home & Business 2019 license no longer recognized after reinstall ("No license found")
Hello everyone,
I'm looking for some help because Microsoft Support has not been able to solve this issue.
I own a genuine perpetual license of Office Home & Business 2019 for Mac, linked to my Microsoft account since August 2019.
The license is still listed under Services & Subscriptions, but Office no longer activates.
My hardware
- MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2012)
- Model: MacBookPro10,2
- Intel Core i5
- 8 GB RAM
- macOS Ventura 13.7.8
- Installed using OpenCore Legacy Patcher
- Office version originally working: 16.78
- Later tested with 16.101 and 16.93
- Same result on every version
What happened
Office had already been successfully activated and worked normally.
I was able to:
- create documents
- edit documents
- save documents
After restarting the Mac, Office suddenly requested activation again.
Since then it has never activated successfully.
Initially Office failed to activate with an unknown error.
After completely uninstalling and reinstalling Office using Microsoft's installer, the activation process changed.
I can now successfully sign in with my Microsoft account, but after authentication Office displays:
"No license found for this account."
My Office Home & Business 2019 license is still present in my Microsoft account under Services & Subscriptions.
Even though my Microsoft account clearly owns Office Home & Business 2019 for Mac.
Microsoft account
The license appears correctly under:
Services & Subscriptions
Office Home & Business 2019 for Mac
Added to my account on August 7, 2019.
The website instructs me to open an Office application and sign in to activate.
Everything I've already tried
- Uninstalled Office completely
- Installed Office again using Microsoft's installer
- Installed Office 16.78
- Installed Office 16.93
- Updated to Office 16.101
- Removed Office containers
- Removed Group Containers
- Deleted OneAuth cache
- Deleted Entrabroker cache
- Removed activation tokens
- Cleared Office preferences
- Signed out and signed back into Microsoft account
- Deleted Office credentials from Keychain
- Reinstalled Microsoft AutoUpdate
- Verified no MDM profile exists
- Verified Internet Accounts
- Verified Microsoft account
- Microsoft Support remotely accessed my Mac and repeated all troubleshooting steps
Nothing solved the issue.
Additional information
Running:
defaults read com.microsoft.office
returns:
OfficeActivationLicense = NoLicense
although:
OfficeActivationEmailAddress = email address removed for privacy reasons
is correctly detected.
The activation window successfully reaches Microsoft's login page.
Office now asks for my Microsoft account credentials.
Authentication completes successfully.
After a few seconds Office reports:
"No license found for this account."
It then offers only two options:
- Buy Microsoft 365
- Use another account
Microsoft Support remotely connected to my Mac, completely removed Office, installed a newer official installer, and the problem remained exactly the same.
My question
Has anyone experienced this after reinstalling Office 2019?
Could this be:
- a licensing server issue?
- an incompatibility introduced after Office 2019 reached end of support?
- an activation problem related to OpenCore Legacy Patcher?
- something else?
I would really appreciate any suggestions.
Thank you very much.
Additional notes:
- The Office license has been associated with the same Microsoft account since 2019.
- The same installation was successfully activated and worked normally before the problem started.
- The issue only appeared after restarting the Mac.
- Microsoft Support has already remotely accessed my computer and could not resolve the problem.
3 Replies
This issue isn't related to hardware,it's a known issue affecting all Office 2019 Mac users.
Microsoft used an embedded license validation certificate for Office 2019 Mac. This certificate expired on July 13, 2026. Main support for Office 2019 Mac ended in October 2023, and extended support in October 2025. Therefore, Microsoft hasn't issued a new certificate. Once the certificate expired, the license validation system stopped working.
Office only opens in view/print mode; creation, editing, and saving functions are disabled. Reinstalling, clearing the cache, or trying different versions doesn't work because the problem is with the certificate, not the device. This isn't related to older Mac hardware; it occurs on newer devices as well.
Solution options:
Free: Use the web versions of Word/Excel/PowerPoint via Office.com.
One-time purchase: Office 2024 for Mac.
Subscription: Microsoft 365.Your license is valid, but you must install the perpetual Office 2019 build using direct installer but not the App Store or subscription installer. Once installed, sign in with your Microsoft account and activation should succeed, support.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-activation-licensing/office-install/activate-office-for-mac
Thank you for your suggestion.
I actually installed Office using Microsoft's standalone installer, not the Mac App Store version.
First I installed version 16.78 (BusinessPro installer). Later Microsoft Support remotely connected to my Mac, completely removed Office and reinstalled it using the official Microsoft_365_and_Office_16.93.25011212_Installer. Afterwards I also updated to version 16.101.
The installation always completes successfully.
I can sign in with my Microsoft account.
Authentication succeeds.
However, Office always ends with the message:
"No license found for this account."
My Office Home & Business 2019 license is still listed under Services & Subscriptions in my Microsoft account.
Microsoft Support repeated the installation themselves during the remote session and obtained exactly the same result.
Do you know if there is any known issue affecting perpetual Office 2019 licenses on macOS Ventura or on systems using OpenCore Legacy Patcher?
