MacOS15 / Sequoia - problems with Microsoft files

I have updated on both my newer MBP M3 Max and my older MBP i9, and both of them have similar problems with the Word .docx files. If you look at the file types, the older doc files are recognised as Microsoft docs. However, the newer docx are just that - no mention of MS.

Excel files have the same problems, but at least Excel can open .xlsx files.

I tried to add the Word and Excel within the Settings Privacy where you allow full disk access. Ii also tried to go into Finder and right mouse click Get Info and force the files to be opened with Microsoft Word by default for all.

I can then open some of the files when I go through via Word\Open, but not if I just try to double click in Finder.

What a mess.

PS As an aside, is MS having another spat with Apple again? I find that I can't see the OneDrive folder to save to when I am on my iPad Pro, if I had opened the file in (say) PDF Expert. Equally if I try to run Word on the iPad, aside from OneDrive, I can't seem to save in Google Drive or iCloud either.

Why can't they all just play nicely with each other?

Same issue with me (from France).

After updating to Sequoia:

• documents with extension .docx and .xlsx were not recognized (.pptx, and previous office extensions like .doc with the "x" were well recognized).
• After damaging a word file because it was opening with iBooks Author by default (I didn't paid attention at that time) then I forced opening of docx and xlsx documents by going to the "information" of one of each type of file and then asked to use these apps for all.
• Since then I have been able to open docx and xlsx files, but stil the icon is is blank in the finder and the "Preview" mode is not working for these files.
• Pages cannot open the docx files (Numbers cannot for the xlsx files)
• When I open Word, the recent and the file browsing well recognizes the docx files and displays the icons. Same in DropBox, Open Office, LibreOffice or other Apps, but still not in Finder.
• When I create a new docx documents, the icon is also not displaying in the Finder and the Preview doesn't work either.

I use the latest versions of Sequoia and of Office business/Family 365 on a MacBook Pro 16" 2023 M2 Max.

(I reinstalled both Sequoia and Office without any improvement)

I wasn't attempting to blame Microsoft.:)

Can you test MS Docs open & work corectly with...

The Free LibreOffice, it handles MS Office files like Word & Excel, & Page Layout…

https://www.libreoffice.org/

My MacBook Air M1 updated to Sequoia 15.0.1, and at first, I believed the problem would be resolved. However, the error persists. The previous procedure I mentioned, repairing via macOS recovery, would temporarily fix the issue, allowing Word to save without errors, but after a few saves, the error would return.

Unfortunately, Apple has not addressed this open topic, and the issue continues.

To fix this, I'm saving all my documents on OneDrive and only at the end save them as .pdf on my server.

This situation is becoming extremely exhausting.

And I read some people saying the problem is from Microsoft and a disagree. The problem came with the Sequoia 15.0 and persist...

Hi, I’m writing from Brazil. I updated my MacBook on September 16, 2024, and since then, I’ve been having issues saving new Word or Excel documents based on my own templates. It’s been a constant struggle.

I contacted Apple Care, and the agent "repaired" my SSD through macOS recovery, which temporarily fixed the problem. However, after saving about three documents, the issue returned.

I believe this is a serious bug in macOS 15.0, and Apple hasn’t released a new update yet, which is quite frustrating. I’ve had to switch to using Pages because every time I try to use Word, my files get corrupted.

Waiting...

The only way to fix any of this is to downgrade to an older version of the MS apps. I'm still running a version of Word (16.85) because every subsequent update has been worse than the last (inoperable, freezing, etc.). It's almost as if MS is purposefully glitching out. I also recently stopped using Word and started using Ulysses. It's entirely Apple-friendly, unlike Microsoft. Hope this helps!

It’s worth noting that Apple produces the operating system and the developers write their apps to work with beta versions of macOS released to them before the final version is released. This means that Microsoft should be working on this issue as it may be they need to update their code. What do the Microsoft groups have to say about this?

some of the things in this post work: Pages no longer opens Word (.docx) docume… - Apple Community

however, they work until the next reboot, especially if you have enabled under iCloud -> iCloud Drive -> Desktop and Documents folder. If this is disabled, this might survive reboots as well. 

Was hoping that b-e-t-a might solve something, and I've tried, but it is not. Running 16.89.1 (24091630) Excel here.

It's a scandal that this happens so often with an update and I believe MS is doing this on purpose. Anyway, you can go to a word-file, go to info and change the extension .docx into .doc and then you can open it. The problem does not appear when you try to open recent files, only when you make use of finder to access the document.

Thanks! This solution worked for me too! I was encountering an issue when trying to open Excel files, with the error message: 'There is no application set to open the document.' When I attempted to update the 'Open with' option, Excel was not available as a highlighted choice. However, by using the workaround of changing the 'Get Info' settings and selecting 'Open with' from there, I was able to resolve the issue.

Does Excel have Full Disk Access?

Please post to: Feedback - MacBook Pro - Apple. The more we post, bigger the possibility it gets high on their agenda and fix this.

I have MS Word v16.89.1 and Pages v14.2 installed on my M2 Mac Mini Pro running the released Sequoia v15.0. The Finder's Open With secondary menu has no entry for Preview as an alternative opening application for Word documents. The Preview Open panel presents Word documents that are grayed out and not openable. That rules out Finder automatically attempting to open Word documents in Preview.

Even without MS Word, LibreOffice, or Pages installed, the default opening application historically has been TextEdit for Word documents.

I have dozens of Word documents on my Sequoia installation and randomly, not one when attempting to open it presents a dialog "Apple could not verify *.docx." But then again, I am not downloading Word documents from the Internet which may contain almost any malware or creation software.

The macOS Sequoia and iOS/iPadOS 18 operating systems are entirely different implementations as are their applications. An issue on your Mac may not be an issue on iOS 18.

Update 1: Unfortunately, LibreOffice was unable to resolve the issue. The problem persists when using this app. The only workaround I found is to use the Pages app, save documents in the .pages format, and then export them as .pdf files.

And the macOS still without any updates.

Hi everyone,

Just providing an update.

My MacBook Air M1, running macOS 15.0, is still corrupting files whenever I try to "save as" .docx, whether I'm using my own template or a blank document.

However, the corruption doesn't always occur, making the issue inconsistent.

But I noticed that after going into macOS recovery mode and attempting to repair the Macintosh HD data, the error doesn't seem to occur immediately. However, after a few saves, the error may occur again.

The workaround I’ve found, when using Office 365, is to save documents in OneDrive and only save the final version as a .pdf on my server, unfortunately.

Hope this helps!