In June, Apple announced at its World Wide Developers Conference that Microsoft would be bringing over its Office 365 apps, including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, as a download on the MacOS app store. Now roughly over seven months later, the moment has finally arrived, and the popular suite of productivity apps are officially available in the store.
Although all of the Microsoft Office 365 apps could have already been installed on MacOS manually by visiting the Microsoft website or other retailers to get a product code and installer package, availability on the app store now makes the process easier. A download now simply involves signing into the MacOS store with an Apple ID and just searching for Office 365. The download bundle is 4.1GB in size and includes Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, and OneDrive. MacOS X 10.6.6 Snow Leopard or later is also required to install, as only these versions of the operating system come installed with the app store.
All the Office 365 apps can be downloaded for free through the MacOS store, but a valid Office 365 subscription is still required to create and edit documents. To send and receive emails, the Outlook app will also require an Office 365 subscription that can be purchased from inside the app. Unfortunately, one-time Office licenses, such as codes for Office Home or Student 2019, won’t work with Office 365 apps downloaded through the store. Documents can still be read in any of the MacOS Office 365 apps without a subscription, though Microsoft does include a one-month trial with in-app purchases.
According to Microsoft, there is plenty of value in the MacOS Office 365 apps. “Office 365 provides experiences tailored to the Mac and macOS, like Dark Mode, Continuity Camera, OneDrive Files on Demand, and Touch Bar support on the MacBook Pro,” Jared Spataro, corporate vice president for Microsoft 365, said in a statement. “The result is an experience that is unmistakably Office but designed for Mac.”
Currently, there is a wide variety of annual subscriptions are available for use with the MacOS Office 365 apps. Office 365 Personal comes in at $70 a year and Office 365 Home at $100 a year. Office 365 Personal only includes access for one user on one PC or Mac, but Office 365 Home expands that to up to six users across both PC and Mac.
