MS Word lagging on 2020 Apple M1 MacBook Pro

Anonymous
2024-05-18T01:38:19+00:00

EDIT: I uninstalled and reinstalled Word as an older version (16.84) and Word works perfectly well.

I have an Apple MacBook Pro M1 chip from late 2020. It works perfectly well. However, Word starts lagging when I use it for a few minutes. This is not an issue with my computer – all other programmes work perfectly well while Word is lagging.

I tried uninstalling Word and reinstalling it, but this problem has persisted. I have closed all other apps bar Word, but Word still lags. I have also tried moving documents out of my OneDrive folder so they weren't being autosaved onto the cloud, but the lag persisted. Running Activity Monitor on Mac does not show excessive strain on Memory, CPU etc. from Word.

I recently installed an update, and I wonder whether this is the cause? Stumped as to how to fix this issue.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | Other | MacOS

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  2. Anonymous
    2024-05-24T08:01:40+00:00

    Dear april wickham，

    Thank you for your response.

    As we continue to receive feedback from other users about Word lag after the update, the development department is still actively investigating the cause of this issue and will work to fix it as soon as possible.

    In order to further help the development department to investigate the cause of the problem, we also recommend that you can put forward your suggestions through the feedback in the program to help collect more information.

    At the same time, if you have not been able to roll back the Office version, in order to check whether the lag is caused by the influence of other software and add-ons, you can try the following actions to see if they are effective:

    1. Eliminate interference from third-party add-ons:

    Home> Add-ins> Other Add-ins>MY ADD-INS>Remove all add-ins

    1. Reset the normal template on Mac (rebuild your existing normal.dotm)

    Close all instances of Word

    Go to the following location on your Mac

    ~/Library/Group Container/UBF8T346G9. Office/User Content/Templates

    (Note: The library is a hidden folder. To view the Library folder, click the Go menu in the Finder, and then press and hold the Option key.

    Find normal.dotm

    Rename it to something else, e.g. normal.old

    Restart Word and your normal.dotm will be rebuilt

    You can always let me know how things are going after you do the above and your answer will show us a way to solve the problem.

    Best Regards,

    Zenobia.Z | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

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  3. Anonymous
    2024-05-24T01:47:41+00:00

    I'm also starting to think that the media needs to be following this. Microsoft is a huge company and not fixing an issue that renders World non-functional for MAC users is causing a lot of damage in missed deadlines and lost time trying to fix the issue or convert documents to something else. I"m stuck because I have major projects linked to Excel documents and I"m not sure what to do at this point. I'm full time work and full time school and I don't have the time for re-doing everything from scratch on MAC software. Well if I do that - I'm sticking with MAC software and cancelling my Office 365 subscription (this is my school MS account but the issue is the same with our home and family one).

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-05-24T00:04:27+00:00

    Issue resolved. Roll-backed Word to another version- it seems to be working fine.

    Mac online support can help you do this if you are unsure.

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  5. Anonymous
    2024-05-23T20:07:25+00:00

    OMG this is happening to me right now, it started two days ago! How can I fix this?

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