2016 Office for Mac Help.

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Level 1

8 points

2016 Office for Mac Help.

Hello, My 2009 iMac with 2016 MS office crashed. My local tech install a new SSD hard drive and used my Time capsule to transfer the data to the new Hard Drive. When i try to open Word, Excel and Outlook the docs are there but you can not cope, edit or print, I get a message saying enter my activation code. This did not work, The tech called Ms and they said the account was blocked and they would unblock it. It's been 2 weeks with no action taken, this is the background. My question is that if I purchased a new 2024 iMac as well as 2024 Office for Mac will I retain my Office word docs, outlook emails and excel docs even though the account is still blocked. Thank you

Posted on Apr 4, 2026 4:26 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Kurt Lang

Level 9

71,853 points

Apr 6, 2026 11:00 AM in response to Prodrag610

Office 2016 isn't blocked so much as it's no longer possible to activate it. It's been at least 4 years now since MS shut down the activation servers for Office 2016.

It ran fine for you as long as nothing changed. But Office (like some other apps, such as Quark XPress) keep track of multiple hardware markers when installed. If something changes, it assumes the software isn't on the computer it was activated under and won't run.

You're going to have to install a new version of Office. If you prefer the perpetual license version, that would currently be Office 2024.

But!, MS now treats the 365 subscription and perpetual versions the same way. Once beyond three major releases of macOS, it needs to be upgraded. Not an issue with 365 since MS releases updates monthly anyway. However, purchasing Office 2024 at this point would be throwing money away as the three year point is coming up. Fully expect to see Office 2027 late this year. So it would be wiser to pay monthly on 365 until the release of the perpetual version, Office 2027.

And MS has been slowly deprecating the perpetual version. Word is (pun not intended), Office 2027 will be the last perpetual version with 5 years of support. Then it will be subscription or nothing.

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Answer 2

Apr 6, 2026 10:33 AM in response to Prodrag610

See this message from Microsoft in October 2020:

End of Support for Office 2016

Make sure that you have the Office docs backed up away from the computer, I would suggest not only on Time Machine. With a newer Mac, you may be able to migrate from the 2009 Mac, though it helps to have more than one option.

From experience, a new Mac with Office can open quite old Office files. There are other programs that will be capable of opening them. (The link does the hard sell on Office 365. That is what I have, but it would be expensive for a single installation, with Mac and Windows on two computers, and two more old Macs available, it starts to be reasonable.)

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