macOS Catalina, Big Sur, Monterey, Ventura and Sonoma Incompatible with Microsoft Office 2008 & Office 2011

macOS Catalina (available late 2019) dropped support for 32bit apps. macOS Mojave had been warning us about this every time we launched one of these apps, and action on your part is now needed if you upgrade beyond macOS Mojave. One of the most popular 32bit apps we see is Microsoft Office 2011, which includes Word, Excel and PowerPoint. If you have been limping along with Office 2008, the same warning applies. See the icons below to determine which version you have.

If you are planning on upgrading to Catalina, Big Sur or Monterey, you may want to purchase a new version of Office. The Office 2021 version began shipping on Oct 5th of 2021. The “perpetual” version is $149 (for Word, Excel and PowerPoint) and Office 365 starts at $69 a year.

If you have Office 2016 or 2019, you can open the Microsoft AutoUpdate app to find out if there are updated versions of Office. Alternatively, click “Help” in Word, Excel or PowerPoint and “Check for Updates”.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Office 2016 and 2019 need to be upgraded to the latest “builds”. Build 16.16.11 or later is required for Office 2016, and build 16.26 or later is required for Office 2019. It would be advisable to do this BEFORE upgrading to Catalina, Big Sur or later, as it may require reinstalling from Microsoft if you upgrade macOS first.

Originally published in July of 2019. Updated in December of 2023.