Office for Mac repeatedly requests keychain access

Applies To
Excel for Microsoft 365 for Mac Word for Microsoft 365 for Mac Outlook for Microsoft 365 for Mac PowerPoint for Microsoft 365 for Mac OneNote for Microsoft 365 for Mac Excel 2024 Word 2024 Outlook 2024 PowerPoint 2024 OneNote 2024 Office 2024 Excel 2024 for Mac Word 2024 for Mac Outlook 2024 for Mac PowerPoint 2024 for Mac OneNote 2024 for Mac Office 2024 for Mac Excel 2021 for Mac Word 2021 for Mac Outlook 2021 for Mac PowerPoint 2021 for Mac OneNote 2021 for Mac Office 2021 for Mac Microsoft 365 for home Office 365 Small Business Microsoft 365 for Mac

If you get repeated prompts to grant access to the keychain when starting a Microsoft 365 for Mac app, Office might have been moved to a location other than the default /Applications folder.

The keychain prompt on Office 2016 for Mac

  1. Select Always Allow when prompted. You might encounter this dialog up to three times per app.

  2. The application should now start successfully.

    Note

    If you accidentally select Deny, follow the instructions in the next section to restore your keychain permissions.

Restore your keychain permissions for Office for Mac

If the above did not work, Office might have trouble accessing the keychain and you'll need to restore keychain permissions for Office for Mac. In these cases, you might experience one of the following:

  • The keychain access prompt appears every time you launch any Office application, even though you previously selected Always Allow.
  • A prompt to sign in to your Microsoft account or Microsoft 365 for business account appears every time you launch any Office application.
  • An Authentication Session Expired error message appears after signing in to your Office applications.

To restore your keychain permissions:

  1. Quit all Microsoft 365 for Mac apps such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote.
  2. Go to Allow apps to access your keychain (Apple Support), and follow the steps.

For more information, go to If your Mac keeps asking for the login keychain password (Apple Support).