How to: Uninstall MS Office on Mac

The following post will go over the How to uninstall MS Office on Mac. 

If you are a Windows user and want to uninstall a program, simply go to the control panel, programs, and features, and then select the program you want to remove and uninstall.  To uninstall a program on a Mac can vary depending on the developer, and how it was installed. Unfortunately on a Mac uninstall isn’t always simple. The following post will explain how to uninstall MS Office on Mac.

One of the more common requests for IT involves having to uninstall Microsoft Office since almost everyone seems to use it.  If you need to uninstall office, the process is slightly different, depending on which version you are using (Office 2011, Office 2016, Office 365).  In all cases, you will need to delete each app, and then go look for specific files/folders to remove.

Uninstall Office 2011

If you are still on the older Office 2011 version, then you have the least amount of steps for uninstalling. To uninstall Office 2011

1. Navigate to your Applications folder.
2. Select Microsoft Excel.
3. Hold down the Command key and select Outlook, Powerpoint, and Word.
4. Drag them all to the Trash and empty it.

This will uninstall Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook from your Mac.

Uninstall Office 2016 / Office 365 

Uninstalling the newer versions of Office (Office 2016 / Office 365) is more complicated than uninstalling Office 2011 because you need also need to locate files in several different folders and move them to the Trash. That is in addition to removing the applications themselves. To uninstall Office 2016 / Office 365

1. Open Finder -> Applications
2. Hold the Command button on your keyboard while you select all of the Office Applications
3. Hold the Control button on your keyboard and select Move to Trash after highlighting all of the MS Office applications. This will remove all of the selected applications.
4. Now In the Finder, click on the Go menu and choose Go to Folder, or press Command+Shift+G.
5. In the box that opens, type: ~/Library and press Go.
6. Locate the Containers folder and open it.
7. Find each of the folders listed below and drag them to the Trash (keep in mind some of the folders listed below may not be there)
   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
8. Click the back arrow in the Finder window to go back to ~/Library and open the Group Containers folder.
9. Locate the 3 folders (highlighted in the below picture) and move them to the Trash (again, some may not be present). UBF8T346G9.ms
   UBF8T346G9.Office
   UBF8T346G9.OfficeOsfWebHost

Once you have done all of that,

• Empty the Trash.
• If any Office icons are in the Dock, right-click on them and choose Options>Remove from Dock.
• Restart your Mac.

Final Thoughts 

After going through all of those steps, you have now successfully uninstalled Office 2016 / Office 365 from your Mac. For all of the success that Macs have found in recent years, it is still surprising that there is no uniform standard for uninstalling applications for a Mac.