Office for Mac 0x8A010101: the account signed in holds no Office licence

Fix it now

Microsoft names two causes for 0x8A010101 on the Mac: you are signing in with a Microsoft account that is not the one your purchase is associated with, or you are using a product key from somewhere other than an official Microsoft store or partner. Both are entitlement problems, so start by reading which account Office thinks it has.

1. In Word, open the About panel from the Word menu and read the licence line, then check which account the account panel shows as signed in.
2. Sign out completely from that panel and quit every Office application.
3. Run Microsoft’s License Removal Tool for Mac so the previous account’s licence files go with it.
4. Reopen Word and sign in with the account the purchase or the seat actually belongs to. A personal Microsoft account and a work account are different things, and Office accepts the wrong one without complaint.
5. If it still reports no licence, have an administrator open the Microsoft 365 admin center, go to Users, then Active users, open the Licenses and Apps panel for that person, and confirm the desktop apps are switched on under the assigned licence.

Microsoft states that a key bought outside an official Microsoft store or partner may be invalid, and that MSDN product keys do not activate retail Office suites.

If Office reports itself licensed you can stop here. If not, the next section explains what the licensing service is being asked and why nothing on the Mac changes the answer.

Why it happens

Office for Mac from the Microsoft 365 channel is licensed per user, by the account signed into it. When it starts it asks the licensing service what that identity is entitled to. A perfectly valid, fully paid account with no Office desktop entitlement gets a clean answer back: nothing. That clean answer is what this code reports, which is why the machine looks healthy while Office insists it is unlicensed.

Microsoft’s own page for the code names the two situations it sees most: the wrong Microsoft account, and a product key from an unofficial source. The first is more common than people expect on Macs, because a Mac will happily sign in with a personal Microsoft account left over from a household subscription while the work seat sits unused. The second is worth taking seriously if the key came from a marketplace listing rather than from a reseller you can name.

There is a third situation the code cannot distinguish, and it is worth checking because it is invisible from the Mac. A plan can include the desktop applications and still have that specific service switched off for one person, because the individual services under a licence are toggled separately when it is assigned. Anyone moved between plans, or licensed in bulk by a script, can hold what looks like the right licence with the apps component off.

0xD0001043, which turns up in the same conversations, is a different thing: Microsoft calls it a server issue and its first remedy is to restart the Mac and try again. And it is worth knowing that shared computer activation, the mechanism that solves multi-user licensing on Windows session hosts, is not available for Office for Mac – so on a shared Mac the licence still follows the person, one entitlement each.

Full reference

Where the entitlement is actually missing

Checking an assignment properly

1. Sign in to the Microsoft 365 admin center as someone with licence management rights.
2. Go to Users, then Active users, and select the person’s row.
3. Open the Licenses and Apps panel in the right-hand pane.
4. Expand the Licenses section and confirm the right licence is ticked.
5. Expand the apps and services under it and confirm the desktop applications are on, not just the plan.
6. Save, close, and have the user sign out of Office and back in. Billing, then Licenses is the faster route when you are checking several people at once.

Things that will not fix it

• Reinstalling Office. The installation is fine; the entitlement is what the service is answering about.
• Renaming the Mac. That is the documented remedy for a different code, 0xD000001C.
• Running the License Removal Tool on its own. It clears the old licence so a correct sign-in can take hold, which is useful only once the account is right.
• Shared computer activation. Microsoft states it is not available for Office for Mac, so it cannot be used to share one seat across users on a Mac.
• Waiting. An assignment that has not been made does not appear, and one that has been made is usually visible after a sign-out and sign-in.

One Mac, two people

The licence follows the user rather than the machine, and on the Mac there is no shared-activation mechanism to soften that. Two macOS accounts on one Mac each need their own entitlement, and signing both into the same Microsoft account to avoid it is a licensing problem rather than a clever workaround. Where a shared machine genuinely needs Office for several people, the honest options are an entitlement each, or the browser versions for the occasional users.

Every code this article covers

Confirm the fix worked

1. Word’s About panel names the subscription or product you expect on the licence line.
2. The account panel shows the intended account and no sign-in prompt appears.
3. Outlook and Excel open without prompting for activation.
4. In the admin centre, the user’s licence still shows the desktop applications enabled after the client has signed in once.
5. Restart the Mac and open an Office application to confirm the state holds.

Questions people ask about this