How Long Can You Use Microsoft Office Without Activation?

Have you installed an unlicensed copy of Microsoft Office 2019 or Office 365 on your computer and want to know how long you can use the Microsoft Office product without activating it? In this guide, we will discuss how long one can use Microsoft Office without activation and what happens when you use Microsoft Office without activation.

How long can you use Microsoft Office without activation?

If you have installed the 30-day trial copy of Office 365, you will be able to use Office for 30 days without any issues. Your payment method will be automatically charged after the 30-day trial period unless you cancel it.

If you have installed a trial copy of Office 2016 or Office 2019, you can use it for five days without activating the trial copy. After that, most features of the Office will be disabled. As of now, Microsoft doesn’t officially offer the Office 2019 trial. So, if you used any other methods to download the Office 2019 setup, you can use for just five days.

What happens when you use Microsoft Office without activation?

Upon launching unlicensed Microsoft Office, you will either get the Sign in to set up Office dialog which asks you to sign in to your Microsoft account (that you used to subscribe to Office) or Enter your product key dialog where you need to enter the 25-character product key. You might also get the Microsoft Office activation wizard if you are running Office 2016 or a previous version of Office.

All editing functionalities are disabled on an unlicensed copy of Microsoft Office. Upon opening a blank document, you will see “PRODUCT NOTICE: Most of the features of Word/Excel/PowerPoint have been disabled because it hasn’t been activated” message with the Activate button next to it. If you attempt to type something, Office won’t let you do that and will display “You can’t make this change because the selection is locked” message in the status bar.

Microsoft Office will also display “Unlicensed Product” message next to the document name in the title bar.

Unlike in Windows 10 where most features continue to work even on an unlicensed install for an unlimited number of days, most functionalities are disabled when you are using Office without activation. So, it’s wise to buy Microsoft Office right away.

That said, according to Microsoft, you will be able to open and view supported documents in Microsoft Office without activation, but you won’t be allowed to edit.

Lastly, if you cannot afford Microsoft Office or feel that Microsoft Office is expensive for what you use it for, try out the free LibreOffice which not only looks like Microsoft Office but supports Microsoft Office formats as well.

How to check if Microsoft Office is activated?

Step 1: Open Office Word/Excel/PowerPoint. Click the File menu and then click Account.

Step 2: On the right side, in the Product Information section, it will display Unlicensed/This product is unlicensed along with an option to activate the product if your Office is not activated.

How to activate Microsoft Office?

You can either sign in with the Microsoft account that you used to buy Office subscription or type the product key that you received after the purchase of Office in the dialog that you get upon launching Microsoft Office to activate your copy.

If you have any issues with the activation, use Microsoft Office 365/2019/2016 activation troubleshooter.