Microsoft Office 2011 Mac 64 bit upgrade

Official support for Office 2011 ended October 2017. There will be no future updates of any kind unless you were one of the few who purchased an Office 365 subscription that included Office 2011. If you purchased a subscription, you have already been updated to Office 2016 64-bit.

If you did not purchase an Office 365 subscription you have a permanent license. Your license will never expire. If you don't update Mac OS past High Sierra 10.13 you can continue to use Office 2011.

Apple has been putting warnings out in recent updates to High Sierra to alert users that they are planning to discontinue 32-bit applications in an upcoming release of Mac OS.

Apple pushing 32-bit app warning live for macOS 10.13.4 as ...

This has led to speculation that the next big update to Mac OS will be 64-bit only. With such heavy-handed hinting, such a conclusion is not unreasonable. Apple has not released a beta of 10.14. I have not seen any verification from Apple that 10.14 will be 64-bit only.

If it does turn out that 10.14 is 64-bit only, then Office 2011 and the original release of Office 2016 will not run in 10.14. Office 2016 was brought up to 64-bit in an update. Office 2019 will start off as 64-bit.

For Office 2011 users, the important thing to remember is that you should not update past High Sierra 10.13 until we know whether or not Apple will block 32-bit apps in version 10.14. If Apple decides to block 32-bit apps in 10.14, then Office 2011 will not run in that version. You can continue to use Office 2011 up to and including 10.13 High Sierra.

Hi there ! I really really agree with you. I have exactly the same problem. In 2013 I bought a Mac Pro in Bangkok and I paid apart the black box of microsoft office 2011. It cost me about 160-170 Euro. They SHOULD release

a Microsoft Office 2011 version running on 64 bit for their "old" customer. If not never mind... I do not expect so much from them and i will use the same version I paid for and I will not upgrade to macOS Mojave.

Thank you, Jim.  This is a VERY useful heads-up.

I have both Office 2011 and Office 2016 installed on my Mac.

(Powerpoint 2011 has some features that were removed from 2016, so I keep both installed).

Marilyn & Jennifer:  Though a warning did pop up once about Office 2011 not being maximized for 64 bit performance, it has been working just fine on my Macbook Pro with High Sierra 10.13.4

Perhaps Honda should replace my gas engine car with electric, too, but I am not counting on it.

Thank you for the humorous reply.

I don't work for Microsoft or Apple, so I appreciate the satire.

Pretty soon we'll be facing the same sort of situation when self-driving cars become mandatory. Car makers know this will be an eventuality. They should be prepared to make all previous model cars work with the roads that have no traffic lights, speed limit signs, etc. and do it at no charge, right?

Office 2011 works on all the hardware and operating systems for which is was originally sold. Microsoft supported it through many versions of Mac OS that didn't even exist at the time it was released. They didn't charge anything extra. No one says you have to update your hardware or Mac OS. It's your option, and if you do, then there's a cost.

A key factor in the decision of Microsoft to require subscriptions for Office 2019 is just this scenario. You will always be kept up to date regardless of what Apple does with Mac OS. However, there will almost certainly be a trailing edge of support for older hardware and Mac OS versions, which will result in the opposite situation - you will be forced to keep your Mac OS and hardware up to date in order to use Office 2019 and later.