Extended support for Office 2016 and Office 2019 is ending

No, although support for Office 2016 and Office 2019 will be discontinued, the software will continue to function. After October 14, 2025, if your computer is running either Office 2016 or Office 2019, it will no longer receive security updates. In addition, Microsoft customer service will no longer be available to provide Office technical support. To continue receiving security updates and help keep your data safer, it's important that you move to the latest productivity software such as Microsoft 365. Learn more.

Office 2016 and Office 2019 includes apps such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, but no new features have been introduced in these versions since their release. Microsoft 365 includes premium versions of these apps, plus other services, including online storage with OneDrive, added security, and coauthoring capabilities. Microsoft 365 provides the full Office experience on PCs, Macs, tablets (including iPad® and Android™ tablet), and mobile devices. Microsoft 365 is always up to date with the latest features and available as a monthly or annual subscription. Learn more about enterprise, education, and personal and family subscriptions.

See system requirements for compatible versions of Windows and macOS, and other feature requirements.

You don’t need to be connected to the internet to use Office apps, such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, because the apps are fully installed on your computer.

However, internet access is required to install and activate all the latest releases of Office suites and all Microsoft 365 subscription plans. For Microsoft 365 plans, internet access is also needed to manage your subscription account, install Office on other PCs, or change billing options. Internet access is also required to access documents stored on OneDrive unless you install the OneDrive desktop app.

You should also connect to the internet regularly to keep your version of Office up to date and benefit from automatic upgrades. If you don’t connect to the internet at least every 31 days, your apps will go into reduced functionality mode, which means that you’ll be able to view or print your documents but won’t be able to edit the documents or create new ones. To reactivate your Office apps, reconnect to the internet.

Yes. Documents that you’ve created belong fully to you. You can store them online on OneDrive or locally on your PC or Mac. If you cancel your subscription or it expires, you’ll still be able access and download all your files by signing into OneDrive using the Microsoft account you used to set up Microsoft 365. However, you’ll lose the additional storage that comes with your subscription, so you must save your files elsewhere or buy more OneDrive storage if your OneDrive account exceeds the free storage quota.

No, while Microsoft 365 offers the best collaboration experience, others can view and edit your files for free using Office for the web.

If you purchase an auto-renew subscription, your subscription starts when you complete your purchase. You can purchase auto-renew subscriptions from Office365.com, MicrosoftStore.com, iTunes®, and other retailers. If you purchase a prepaid subscription, your subscription starts when you activate your subscription and land on your My Account page. You can purchase prepaid subscriptions from a retailer or reseller, or a Microsoft support agent.

If you have an active Microsoft 365 Family subscription, you can share it with up to five members of your household (six total, including yourself). Each household member you share your subscription with can use any of your available installs on their PCs, Macs, iPads, Android™ tablets, Windows tablets, iPhones® or Android™ phones, get an additional 1 TB of OneDrive storage, and manage their own installs from www.office.com/myaccount.

To add someone to your subscription, go to www.office.com/myaccount and follow the onscreen instructions to add a user. Each person you add will receive an email with the steps they need to follow. Once they have accepted and completed the steps, their information, including the installations they’re using, will appear on your My Account page. You can stop sharing your subscription with someone or remove a device they are using at www.office.com/myaccount.

The cloud is a friendly way of describing web-based computing services that are hosted outside of your home or organization. When you use cloud-based services, your IT infrastructure resides off your property (off-premises) and is maintained by a third party (hosted), instead of residing on a server at your home or business (on-premises) that you maintain. With Microsoft 365, for example, information storage, computation, and software are located and managed remotely on servers owned by Microsoft. Many services you use every day—such as web-based email, mobile banking, and online photo storage—are a part of the cloud. Because this infrastructure is located online or “in the cloud,” you can access it virtually anywhere, from a PC, tablet, mobile device, or other device with an internet connection.¹