Cancelling Microsoft 365 Office - Impact on access to Word and Excel

If you cancel your Microsoft 365 subscription, your desktop applications such as Word and Excel will eventually switch to reduced, read-only functionality. You will still be able to open, view and print existing documents, but you will not be able to create new documents or edit existing ones . Full editing requires an active Microsoft 365 subscription or a separate perpetual license such as Office 2024. Your locally stored files are not deleted when you cancel the subscription. Anything saved directly to your laptop or to a USB drive remains on the laptop or USB drive.

The OneDrive issue should be dealt with before cancelling your subscription. OneDrive itself does not require an Apple account. You should be able to access your OneDrive files using the Microsoft account associated with your Microsoft 365 subscription. On your Windows 11 laptop, go directly to onedrive.com in a web browser and sign in with that Microsoft account. This avoids any potentially confusing application or shortcut that may be sending you through an Apple-related sign-in process.

The Apple sign-in prompt is not normal for accessing a Microsoft OneDrive account. It suggests that something else involved in the process, such as iCloud, an Apple-related application, a shortcut, or the way the mobile photos are being transferred, is involved. You do not need to create an Apple account simply to use OneDrive on Windows.

You should also check your OneDrive backup settings on the Windows laptop. Click the OneDrive cloud icon on the taskbar (near the clock), open Settings, and go to Sync and backup. Look at Manage backup and check whether Desktop, Documents and Pictures are being backed up. If they are enabled, files and photos saved into those folders can automatically appear in OneDrive. That could explain why photographs transferred from your phone seem to be "disappearing" into OneDrive. They may still be on your laptop but are also being synchronized to OneDrive.

I would not recommend relying on the Desktop as a way of avoiding OneDrive until you check this setting. If Desktop backup is enabled, your Desktop is actually part of your OneDrive synchronization. A USB drive is local storage, so files copied there are not affected by your Microsoft 365 subscription. However, you should not need to use USB drives just to make your files accessible. Once OneDrive is configured correctly, you should be able to keep files on the laptop while optionally synchronizing them with OneDrive.

You can use your Microsoft 365 subscription on a Samsung tablet even though the tablet does not run Windows. Samsung tablets use Android, and Microsoft provides Word, Excel and other Microsoft 365 applications for Android. Open the Google Play Store on the Samsung tablet, install the Microsoft 365 app or the individual Word and Excel apps, and sign in using the same Microsoft account associated with your Microsoft 365 subscription. The subscription will then be recognized on the tablet and the features available under your particular plan will be enabled.

If you have Microsoft 365 Family, you can also share the subscription with up to five other people. Each person should use their own Microsoft account rather than sharing your Microsoft account password. If the Samsung tablet is your own additional device, you can simply sign into it with your existing Microsoft account. You do not need a Windows PC for Word or Excel to work on the Samsung tablet.

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hth

Marcin