Office Removal Tool For Mac

Uninstall Office 2013 or 365. To make sure your uninstall goes successfully, Microsoft has made a Fix it tool for everyone. Download this Fix it solution (kb 2739501) and launch it.

I have Office 2008 for OS X through Microsoft's HUP (Home Use Program). I want to reinstall, so I need to first remove it.

Delete Office 2016 Mac

For Office on OS X, Microsoft provides a binary called '/Applications/Microsoft Office 2008/Additional Tools/Remove Office/Remove Office'. When I run it, it says it can't find any versions of office on my computer and won't do anything.

I know MS-Office for Mac puts many different components in various places all over the system and not just within it's own applications folder, so how to I successfully remove Office so I can re-install?

Office Removal Tool For Mac

1. Locate your Office 2004 folder in Applications and the Additional Tools folder within that for the uninstaller. A problem you will probably have is that Office 2004 was a Power PC app and the uninstaller won’t run unless your Mac is running Snow Leopard or earlier.
2. To uninstall Office for Mac 2011 move the applications to the Trash. Once you've removed everything, empty the Trash and restart your Mac to complete the process. Before you remove Office for Mac 2011, quit all Office applications and make sure there's nothing in Trash that you want to keep.

4 Answers

Basically, without trying to fix Office Uninstaller nor using any other Microsoft tools, you can search your any files containing the name office or microsoft :

You can easily find the result in ~/Desktop/2008.txt.

And then delete files referring to Office 2008.

EDIT :

I've just downloaded Office 2008 Trial and the installer is a .mpkg, so you can use tools like Pacifist or Suspicious Package to check what is installed with Microsoft Office.

Delete the Microsoft Office 2008 folder from Applications. Office also has files located in your user folder at ~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office and ~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008. It stores receipts for all the updates in /Library/Receipts and fonts in /Library/Fonts/Microsoft. I may be missing something but those seem to be the main folders.

If you want to reinstall Office 2008, it should be sufficient to remove the Microsoft Office 2008 application folder as well as the file ~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008/Microsoft Office 2008 Settings.plist. That way, you won't lose any templates in your user folder.

I was having the same problem a few weeks ago. I re-ran the installer, and it this time it detected Office 2008. Success!

So, I would try re-running the installer, maybe after a reboot. You could also try downloading the latest updates for Office 2008. Maybe the uninstaller had a bug that has been fixed.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged macosuninstalloffice-for-macmicrosoft-office-2008 or ask your own question.

It’s no great mystery why we’d want to uninstall Office 2011.

8 Steps total

Step 1: Quit Everything

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

Step 2: 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.

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.

Step 3: 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.

Step 4: 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.”

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

Step 5: Removing Receipts

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.”

Step 6: 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.

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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.

Step 7: Removing Fonts

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.

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Step 8: 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.

I 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, a bit annoying, course of action.

References

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3 Comments

• Tabasco
  austin janey Apr 9, 2015 at 04:08pm

  Alternatively there is a mac app called appCleaner by freemacsoft that does most of the work for you it looks for associated files and grabs them then deletes them its pretty fantastic and will do clean uninstalls of pretty much any program not just office.

• Mace
  AceOfSpades Apr 9, 2015 at 06:55pm

  Also available is a script from http://www.officeformachelp.com/office/install/remove-office/ see bottom of the page to download it.

• Thai Pepper
  Priyal (Stellar Info Tech) Apr 14, 2015 at 10:03am

  Stellar Speedup Mac is another choice to remove Leftovers of any application including Office for Mac 2011. It cleans those files which weren't removed by the OS X at the time of uninstalltion. This is the free feature of the software.