A red or yellow banner appears across the top of Word, Excel or Outlook saying your subscription has expired, or that the product is deactivated. Editing stops and documents go read-only. It looks alarming, but your files and your email are untouched. This is about the licence attached to your account, not about your data.
Try this first
- Check which account you are signed into. In any Office app click File, then Account. On a Mac, click the app menu, then Account. Look at the email address at the top. If it is a personal address, or an old work address from a previous job, that is very likely the cause.
- Sign out and back in with the right account. On the same Account screen click Sign out, close every Office app, then reopen one and sign in with your current work email address.
- Restart the computer. Licence changes often will not take effect until everything has closed properly.
- Check the computer has been online recently. Office checks its licence with Microsoft every so often. A laptop that has spent weeks off the network, or one that only connects through a guest wifi with heavy restrictions, will eventually show this banner even though nothing is wrong with the subscription.
- Look for more than one account listed. On the Account screen, if there are two work accounts or a work and a personal one, Office may be checking the wrong one. Note down what you see rather than removing anything.
Please do not buy a personal subscription
This is the important part. When the banner appears, the buttons on it lead straight to a Microsoft page offering to sell you a personal Microsoft 365 subscription, and it looks like the obvious way to make the problem stop. It is not.
Buying a personal subscription creates a second, separate account that has nothing to do with your work email. The banner may disappear, but Office is then signed into an account that cannot see your work mailbox or your business files. Documents start saving to a personal OneDrive nobody else can reach, your work mail may stop syncing, and the business ends up paying twice for the same person. Untangling it afterwards takes far longer than fixing the original licence, and files created in the meantime often have to be hunted down and moved.
If you have already bought one, tell us. It is easily sorted, and it is a very common mistake. Just say so early so we can move anything you have saved to the right place, and cancel the personal subscription while you are still inside the refund window.
If that didn't fix it
Log a ticket, or email admin@yougrowit.com.au if it looks like a billing question rather than a technical one. Include:
- A photo or screenshot of the banner, with the exact wording.
- The email address shown on the File, then Account screen.
- Whether it is just you or several people.
- Whether webmail at outlook.office.com still works.
Why this happens
Three causes cover nearly all of them. A licence was unassigned from the account, often when someone was tidying up after a staff change and the wrong person was picked. The card on the Microsoft billing account expired or was declined, so the subscription lapsed. Or the person is simply signed into the wrong account, which happens constantly on a computer that has had more than one user or was brought from a previous job.
The card one is worth knowing about. Microsoft will keep trying for a while and send warning emails first, but those emails go to whoever set the account up, which is not always someone still at the business. If we manage your licences, we see the warnings and act on them before anyone sees a banner.
Still stuck?
Log a ticket at portal.yougrowit.com.au or email support@yougrowit.com.au. If it is stopping you working right now, call 03 9028 4358.
Support hours are Monday to Friday, 8:30am to 5:30pm Melbourne time, excluding Victorian public holidays.
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