FAQ | What Is a Microsoft Office ‘Lifetime’ License? Can I Move a Lifetime Office License to a New MacBook?

If you’re sick of paying regular monthly fees for your productivity apps, we have a great Microsoft Office deal for you that offers a lifetime license to Microsoft Office Home & Business Edition for Mac 2021 for only $49.95.

This gives you the entire suite of Microsoft’s world-famous productivity apps, including not just Word and Excel, but also PowerPoint, Outlook, and even Teams and OneNote.

In this era when most software is now sold by subscription, it’s easy to get confused by exactly what it actually means to buy a software license, but thankfully it’s still possible to pay once for your software and have it continue working indefinitely without the need to pay another single cent.

Q: What is a “Lifetime” License? If this works “forever” does that mean every future upgrade is free? What happens when Office 2024, or Office 2030 comes along?

While paying a monthly subscription fee for software can get pricey, one of the major selling points is that you’re almost always guaranteed to get all future version upgrades included.

That’s seldom the case when making one-time purchases of anything. Buy a book, you get that book. Join a book-of-the-month club, you get every new book that comes out in the club. It’s really no different with software.

“Lifetime” or “perpetual” software licenses simply mean that the version of the software you buy will not arbitrarily stop working. It doesn’t have an expiry date, and you will be able to continue to use what you’ve purchased for as long as you like. When buying software outright, most companies also provide minor bug fixes and security updates at no additional charge, and a company as big as Microsoft is certainly no exception.

In this case, what you’re paying for is “Microsoft Office Home & Business Edition 2021 for Mac,” and you’ll get every update to that version of Microsoft Office.

When Microsoft Office Home & Business Edition 2024 for Mac comes along — or 2023, or 2025, or whatever else Microsoft may choose to call it — you won’t receive a free update to that, since that’s an entirely new product, that will deliver new features that Microsoft expects customers to actually pay for.

Even so, your 2021 version of Microsoft won’t stop running just because a new version comes out. In fact, Microsoft usually continues to support older versions with additional bug fixes and security patches for a few years after a new version arrives.

Q: What if I upgrade to a newer Mac or newer version of macOS? Will these Office 2021 apps still work?

Microsoft and Apple are completely separate companies, and Microsoft doesn’t have any specific insight into what Apple will do. The bottom line is that you should always check all of your important apps for compatibility when upgrading to any major new version of macOS.

Sometimes apps may break simply due to glitches in a macOS update, in which case they’re typically fixed either by a software update to those apps, or a later macOS point release. These kinds of issues are rare with major software apps like Office, as they’re thoroughly tested during the macOS beta cycle.

Once in a while, however, Apple is forced to leave certain apps behind. This is rare, but it does happen. Technology marches ahead, and companies can’t support older apps forever.

However, this also comes with years of notice in advance of such a move, and large companies like Microsoft usually stay ahead of these changes. For instance, Microsoft Office 2016 for Mac came out in July 2015 as a 32-bit app suite, but was updated to 64-bit versions on August 22, 2016 — three years before Apple killed off support for 32-bit apps in 2019 with macOS Catalina.

It’s Microsoft’s policy to perpetually support the three most recent versions of macOS for all supported Office suites. Today that’s Office 2019 and Office 2021 under Monterey, Big Sur, and Catalina. Next year, Catalina will drop off that list, to be replaced by whatever macOS 13 turns out to be called.

Office for Mac is supported on the three most recent versions of macOS. As new major versions of macOS are made generally available, Microsoft will drop support for the oldest version and support the newest and previous two versions of macOS.

Microsoft Office 2021 FAQ

It’s inevitable that Microsoft will someday discontinue official support for Office 2021, but that won’t likely happen until at least 2025. Until then, it will continue to be supported on new versions of macOS that come along. This means that if Apple breaks something, Microsoft will need to fix it.

However, even when Microsoft ends support for Office 2021, that doesn’t mean it will suddenly stop working. Support for Office 2016 ended on October 13, 2020 — a month before Apple released macOS Big Sur. However, it’s still working just fine for many folks using it on the latest release of macOS 12.0 Monterey.

Q: If I upgrade to another MacBook Pro in the future, can I carry that license to install on my new laptop, or must I purchase another one?

The short answer is yes, as Microsoft Office is licensed to you and not to your specific Mac.

However, since a single license only allows you to use the Microsoft Office apps on a single computer at one time, you will need to uninstall the entire Microsoft Office suite from your old MacBook Pro before installing it on your new one.

You’ll also need to “activate” Office 2021 to assign your license to the new computer. Normally, you’re allowed to do this once every 90 days, although you can usually get that waived by placing a telephone call to Microsoft’s activation centre and explaining that you upgraded to a new MacBook.

Note that you can’t split up the individual Office apps. The license is for the suite of apps as a whole, meaning you can’t use Word on one MacBook Pro and Excel on a different one. For that, you would need to purchase an additional license.

Q: Can I sell or transfer my Microsoft Office 2021 license to someone else?

Unfortunately, unlike earlier versions of Microsoft Office, an Office 2021 license still gets associated with your online Microsoft account. While you can certainly allow someone else to use this license, such as a family member, it remains associated with your name.

Conclusion

Make no mistake, you may feel like you’re getting “free” updates with a monthly Office 365 subscription, but you’re definitely paying for them — you’re just doing it so slowly you don’t notice it all at once.

The money you’ll save by purchasing Microsoft Office Home & Business Edition for Mac 2021 outright will more than make up for buying the next version when it comes along, but best of all is that you can cross that bridge when you come to it.

If the next version of Office doesn’t offer anything you need, and your Office 2021 apps are still working fine, there’s really no need to spend the money to upgrade.