How do I turn off Sync Services Agent?

I had the same problem. I tried going into system preferences and force closing the running programs, but they were not there. Go to Utilities in the Applications folder, then find Activity Monitor. You'll find both of these programs running there. Select each one, and "force quit." Hopefully it will install for you as it did for me.

Good luck!

Hey everybody:

I have the solution to this problem.

I had installed Microsoft Office on my Mac at home recently, primarily to use Outlook on a day where I was working from home, and when I was done, I quit Outlook, but it was too late; the installation had left its residue. I got pop-up Windows which were related to Outlook telling me there were meetings, etc, so I wanted to find all running processes with "microsoft" somewhere in their path and to kill them off. These are the initial steps I took:

Tue 10:14:15 {jsl@marlin:[~]} pwd

/Users/jsl

Tue 10:14:27 {jsl@marlin:[~]} ps -ef | egrep -i 'microsoft|PPID' | egrep -v egrep

UID PID PPID C STIME TTY TIME CMD

501 6036 313 0 10:11AM ?? 0:00.49 /Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/Office/Office365Service.app/Contents/MacOS/Office365Service

501 6038 313 0 10:11AM ?? 0:00.65 /Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/Office/Microsoft Database Daemon.app/Contents/MacOS/Microsoft Database Daemon

501 6039 313 0 10:11AM ?? 0:00.45 /Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/Office/SyncServicesAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/SyncServicesAgent

Tue 10:14:49 {jsl@marlin:[~]} kill 6036 6038 6039

As you can see, I tried to kill off the 3 Microsoft-related processes, but when I went to double-check that I had actually gotten rid of them, I saw that 2 of them had come back:

Tue 10:15:05 {jsl@marlin:[~]} ps -ef | egrep -i 'microsoft|PPID' | egrep -v egrep

UID PID PPID C STIME TTY TIME CMD

501 6104 313 0 10:15AM ?? 0:00.38 /Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/Office/SyncServicesAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/SyncServicesAgent

501 6105 313 0 10:15AM ?? 0:00.26 /Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/Office/Microsoft Database Daemon.app/Contents/MacOS/Microsoft Database Daemon

I kept trying to kill off various processes, but eventually I figured out that if I killed off every process except for the "SyncServicesAgent", I could at least keep the number of Microsoft-related processes to a minimum. But the real question was how to kill off the SyncServicesAgent so that it would stay dead? I noticed that "kill -9" didn't work, because the prcoess was definitely dying, but something else was bringing it back to life, and that's what I needed to suss out.

Let me just cut to the end, so that you, too, can know what steps to take. You want to kill off all "microsoft" processes except for "SyncServicesAgent" using "kill" on the command-line (in Terminal), and then use "launchctl" for the last step, as below:

Tue 10:30:44 {jsl@marlin:[~]} ps -ef | egrep -i 'microsoft|PPID' | egrep -v egrep

UID PID PPID C STIME TTY TIME CMD

501 6104 313 0 10:15AM ?? 0:00.69 /Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/Office/SyncServicesAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/SyncServicesAgent

501 6105 313 0 10:15AM ?? 0:00.74 /Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/Office/Microsoft Database Daemon.app/Contents/MacOS/Microsoft Database Daemon

501 6158 313 0 10:30AM ?? 0:00.41 /Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/Office/Office365Service.app/Contents/MacOS/Office365Service

Tue 10:31:09 {jsl@marlin:[~]} kill 6105 6158

Tue 10:31:24 {jsl@marlin:[~]} ps -ef | egrep -i 'microsoft|PPID' | egrep -v egrep

UID PID PPID C STIME TTY TIME CMD

501 6104 313 0 10:15AM ?? 0:00.69 /Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/Office/SyncServicesAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/SyncServicesAgent

Tue 10:31:26 {jsl@marlin:[~]}launchctl list | wc -l

244

Tue 10:44:25 {jsl@marlin:[~]} launchctl list | egrep -i microsoft

- 0 com.microsoft.SyncServicesAgent.74304

6104 - com.microsoft.SyncServicesAgent

Tue 10:44:34 {jsl@marlin:[~]} launchctl remove com.microsoft.SyncServicesAgent

Tue 10:45:02 {jsl@marlin:[~]} ps -ef | egrep -i 'microsoft|PPID' | egrep -v egrep

UID PID PPID C STIME TTY TIME CMD

Tue 10:45:22 {jsl@marlin:[~]}

Just to be clear, that last step -- and the step which everyone here is looking for -- is pretty much just

"launchctl remove com.microsoft.SyncServicesAgent", and the problem is taken care of. Cheers!

I tried all the solutions above, and the many others that are posted on various other forums (involving shift keys, activity monitor, dragging and dropping apps, renaming etc). None of them worked. SyncServicesAgent and the Daemon App would reactivate evcery single time, within seconds.

What worked for me was to start the update installation and get to the point where it require syncservices etc to be closed. At this point, i DISCONNECTED FROM THE INTERNET. (I also quit syncservices and the database daemon in Activity Monitor but I don't know if that step was necessary). Then I went back ot the update installation, clicked continue and it all went fine.

So the answer seems to be: go offline.

Good luck

JamjarPW was on the money except for one thing.

After getting to the point in the install where you are asked to quit SychServices or Cancel,

a. Turn off your wirelesss link

b. go into Activity Monitor, select SycnhServices Agent and hit Quit Process button above.

The Installer will then detect the momentary absence of the SychServices agent and request your Admin password to proceed with the installation. This is even though the SychServices agent has almost instaneously restarted.

I had already un-installed Outlook, then started the download to update to 2011. When I received the message to close the syncservices agent. I did go to the Activity Monitor as suggested, but still would not close. So I found another icon in the activity monitor called "close apps."

That worked. I think i should have quit the SSA before un-installing.

Internet still running..meanwhile.

Thank you! I've suffered for several days of getting nothing done because of this issue. And the timing couldn't have been worse! Anyway, I finally put the SyncServicesAgent.app in the trash and at last, my problem is fixed!!

Hi everybody, this is pretty much the solution, you all need to go offline when it asks to close syncservicesagent... but to be sure open the activity monitor and kill it anyway, it will appear again whyle you are online but will not influence installation. So answer is GO OFFLINE the minute it ask to close syncserviceagent... it worked fine for me.

One question -

Is it totally impossible to dream of Microsoft Updates for Mac to simply automatically do what needs to be done so the updates can install and then return the Mac to its previous state?

I noticed with this most recent update that SyncServices Agent simply would not behave and stay closed. I'll try the offline trick next time if I get stuck. While I'm no longer a "Mac Newbie" (after more than 7 years since I joined this forum), and am quite capable, I find messing with this nonsense with every Office update a royal pain in the rear.

Lord knows that no one else requires such hoop jumping but Microsoft. I barely use Office any longer since Pages et al have improved, but given that I have paid for it I figure I'll keep it until it is so out of date I cannot update it any longer.

Thanks

Had no problem with daemon (closing it @ activity monitor) using instructions mentioned above, but "the royal pain-in-the-***" a.k.a. SyncServicesAgent caused some problems. In the end, went off-line and tried 5 times, after which it finally accepted to close itself. Outlook updated...

Hi, I know I am literally new and this is my first post. I had this same issue with a Mac Mini and this is what I did that easily fixed this issue.

Note: I am saying what worked for me, results may vary.

Please read all instructions before you start, because they might not be in order.

1. Open activity monitor and you will see that Agent that's causing us trouble. (Don't quit or force quit it yet)

2. Run your Office Update to the point where that agent is holding us back.

You have to be fast on the next step.

3. As soon as Office requests the closure of the agent ("Closing Application"), go to your activity monitor and quit that wicked agent.

If your Apple device is password protected, your will get that prompt to enter your admin password and there goes your successful installation.

I hope this helps someone out there, and Let the odds be in your favor!

Simple Solution

I had this problem and read loads of posts on how to get around it. With a bit of trial and error, I came up with a solution that worked for Mac Mini running OS X Version 10.10.2.

Dragging SyncServicesAgent to my desktop, using activity monitor to close it and disconnecting from the internet had no effect. The d-a-m-n thing always started (normally immediately) again and prevented Office update from doing its stuff.

The thing that worked for me was to find SyncServicesAgent in Applications>Microsoft Office 2011>Office and rename the file by simply adding a letter at the end - so it was, for example, SyncServicesAgentx. You'll get a warning that changing the name while it is running might cause problems, but I ignored this and was then able to close the service in Activity Monitor. The update process then went ahead as it should.

Once the process was complete, I changed the SyncServicesAgentx name back to SyncServicesAgent and all is now fine. Don't forget this step.

I hope this helps

This was the only way I was able to get it to work. Just type it in the Terminal window and it installs without issue. Thanks!

Just to be clear, that last step -- and the step which everyone here is looking for -- is pretty much just

"launchctl remove com.microsoft.SyncServicesAgent", and the problem is taken care of. Cheers!

Don_Proximo you were right!

Doing it quickly. Right when the box pops up "Close Application" was key for me. Have the Activity Monitor open and ready to quickly "Force Quit" the "SYNC SERVICES AGENT"

Is there any way of telling me how to do this in English? I'm not a teckie but I have tried going through Utilities, turning of the WiFi, going through Outlook and nothing has worked in closing SyncServicesAgent. Help!!!!!!!

I found this simple solution worked for me. Find the Syncservicesagent app in your applications folder (the search function in Finder can easily do that). Click and grab the application and move it to your desktop. Once there, rename it to something like Syncservicesagent1. Then go back to Activity Monitor, locate Syncservicesagent and do a Force Quit. It will not restart this time because it can't find the app. Now you can do the upgrade. BTW, I left Syncservicesagent on my desktop in the renamed form and did not move it back to its original location in Applications. So far, my Office applications are working just fine without it. However, I do not use Outlook or any other Microsoft applications except Word, Excel and PPT. I plan to leave it permanently out of my apps - it's just wasting CPU for me.