Additional permissions are required to access the files (Word for Mac)

Anonymous
2019-05-06T07:05:57+00:00

Split from this thread.

Hello

I am trying to open a docx file and I keep getting a message that additional permissions are required to access the files. 

After selecting the grant access option I get the message "Word cannot open the document:  user does not have access privileges" and I cannot open the document.

My current version of office is 16.24

Version of Mac is 10.14.4

When I perform a computer restart I can open my Word docs then, after a while, I can't open any docs. 

attached is a screen shot of the error message.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2019-07-19T04:22:23+00:00

This is a fix, but the specific steps are a bit drastic by removing your whole keychain, which contains a lot of other useful things.

You can fix this in a different way without messing up your whole keychain.

Make sure the office Applications are closed.

Within KeyChain Access, just search for ADAL, remove the entries starting with 

MicrosoftOffice as the kind plus com.microsoft.adalcache

The 16.27 update release July 16 2019 should fix most of the issues with this Bug.

Additionally the following are some fixes that will fix this specific error and similar permission errors with Office Mac products

  1. Update Office to 16.27 or later (choose Check For Update from the Help menu in any Office Application)
  2. Remove Microsoft ADAL keychain entries (search for ADAL in the keychain and remove those items)
  3. Remove the securebookmarks preference files

Press Command+Shift+G in the finder then paste the following

~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Excel/Data/Library/Preferences/

Within this folder remove the following file

com.microsoft.Excel.securebookmarks.plist

Press Command+Shift+G again and then paste in the following

~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data/Library/Preferences/

Within this folder remove the following file

com.microsoft.Word.securebookmarks.plist

After any and all of the above steps, please reboot your machine (manually removing preferences and keychain items does not guarantee they will be recreated properly unless you restart)

Additionally if the files are located on a shared drive, the files may be open by someone else. The other users may also just have the files highlighted in the finder (whereby it is then generating a preview of the file and therefore the file is marked as open)

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  1. Anonymous
    2019-05-16T14:41:59+00:00

    For crying out loud, you are defending Microsoft's decision to sell Office through the App Store as a "business decision" but you are denying Apple's the right to make the business decision to impose stricter rules on apps sold through the App Store.

    Once again, NOBODY forced Microsoft to sell its apps through the App Store. They could have continued the way things were. It was their choice to try and comply with App Store rules. Obviously they failed miserably. And we are now all paying the price.

    How is that Apple's fault?

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  2. Anonymous
    2019-05-18T13:03:28+00:00

    Close all open Office application

    Open Key Chain Access

    Right Click on the Login

    Select Make New Key Chain Access

    Right click the new created Key Chain Access

    Select Make as default

    Re-open Office application

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  3. Anonymous
    2019-05-18T14:43:56+00:00

    It appears to me that the problem is in the length of the file name path including all of the folders from the storage source. The problem has appeared in "office 365 for mac" word 16.24. Microsoft Word 12.3.6 does not have that problem.

    I my case, the depth of the file is 8 or 9 folders down from the top level.

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  4. Jim G 134K Reputation points MVP
    2019-05-20T17:45:01+00:00

    Office 2016 and 2019 adhere to sandboxing rules

    Older versions of Office do not follow Apple's sandboxing guidelines

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    2 people found this answer helpful.
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