Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

How do I turn off Sync Services Agent?

I am trying to redownload my Office: mac 2011 to my Mac Book Pro. When I put in the Office: Mac 2011 disc it keeps telling me to quit the following applications-- Sync Services Agent. I have tried to "force quit" this app. but it continues to run. I need some help on this. Thanks!

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.4)

Posted on Sep 14, 2012 6:11 AM

Reply
Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Sep 25, 2012 5:16 AM

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!

41 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Sep 25, 2012 5:16 AM in response to pinnbob

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!

Dec 11, 2012 11:49 AM in response to pinnbob

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

Jul 4, 2013 1:00 AM in response to pinnbob

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.

Jan 16, 2014 10:03 AM in response to pinnbob

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.

Mar 4, 2014 10:54 AM in response to pinnbob

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!

How do I turn off Sync Services Agent?

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple ID.