How to fix “Your account doesn’t allow editing on a Mac”

If you use Microsoft Office 365, you may have come across the error: “Your account doesn’t allow editing on a Mac”. It’s annoying and frustrating because it means you can’t work on documents even if your subscription should allow you to do that. Here’s how to fix it.

What causes the “Your account doesn’t allow editing on a Mac" message?

There are two possible reasons for the error:

1. Microsoft doesn’t recognize your Office 365 license.
2. There are corrupt files in your Mac’s Library folder.

With regard to number 2, above, Microsoft has identified three files that may cause a problem and recommends removing those. We’ll show you how to do that below.

How to fix “Your account doesn’t allow editing on a Mac”

1. In a web browser, navigate to portal.office.com
2. Click on My Account
3. Look at the Subscriptions panel
4. Check for Office 365
5. If you see it, you have the correct license and that’s not the problem. If you don’t see it, check that you are signed into the correct account.

If that doesn’t solve the problem, the next step is to remove those files we mentioned earlier.

1. Launch each Office app installed on your Mac, click on the application name (eg Word) menu and choose Sign Out. Then quit the application.
2. In the Finder, click on the Go menu and choose Go to Folder
3. In the box, type: ~/Library
4. Click on the Group Containers folder
5. Locate the following three files/folders and drag them to the Trash
   
   UBF8T346G9.ms
   UBF8T346G9.Office
   UBF8T346G9.OfficeOsfWebHost
   
6. Empty the Trash and launch an Office application to check if you can now edit documents.

One more solution: Repair Disk Permissions

The “Your account doesn’t allow editing on a Mac” warning in Office 365 can be caused by broken or outdated permissions. You can try and fix it with a free tool in CleanMyMac X.

Download a free edition of this app (Apple-notarized version).

• Run the program and click Maintenance.
• Now check Repair Disk Permissions

Additionally, check the System Junk section in the sidebar. Cleaning system junk rids your system of caches and other temporary items that could interfere with your MS Office. 

Over time, these files grow and as well as taking up space on your drive, can slow your Mac down and cause it to run into problems. CleanMyMac X’s System Junk module can identify and remove these files with a couple of clicks.

How to reset MS Office to the default state

Another solution that may fix your account settings is to reset the app itself. Normally, apps, like MS Office Suite don't have a reset function. But using CleanMyMac X you can erase some temporary preferences and settings i.e. reset it, without losing any valuable data.

1. Open CleanMyMac X (a link to download its free version)
2. Click on the Uninstaller tab.
3. Find Office 365 in the list.
4. In the dropdown menu under Uninstall, choose Reset.
5. Click the big button below — and that's it.
   

Relaunch the app and try if you can edit files now.

The “Your account doesn’t allow editing on a Mac” warning in Office 365 can be caused by a licensing issue or by files Microsoft puts on your Mac becoming corrupt. To fix it, follow the steps above and you should be able to edit files in Office apps once more.