Uninstalling Old Versions of Office for Mac

[Haole Boy]

Aloha everyone. Working on my first Mac in a couple of years. Customer has a new-ish iMac and they appear to have moved over all software and data from old machine. Included in the software are both Office for Mac 2008 and 2011. They are currently using Microsoft 365 Office apps. So, I want to remove these old versions.

Searching the web, I see various procedures to uninstall / remove old versions of Office for Mac. Some articles say to go to the apps folder and move the Office for xxxx folder to Trash. Others have details on deleting files from the Library folder. Some refer to a removal utility for 2008, but that apparently does not work on newer version of macOS?

So, can I just move the app folders to Trash? Or do I have to do a more thorough cleaning of the machine?

Mahalo,

Harry Z

 

[taysr]

I'd start by just deleting the old apps from the apps folder, if that fails then look into a removal tool.

 

[Markverhyden]

I'd start by removing all of them. Then installing the current version. Obviously make sure data is backed up, like emails.
Documents Folder > I think old Outlook for Mac put the emails in there.
Apps folder . remove apps
<username> > Library > Application Support > remove anything with M$
<username> > Library > Containers > remove anything with M$
<username> > Library > Group Containers > remove anything with M$
<username> > Library > Preferences > remove anything with M$
<username> > Library > Saved Application State> remove anything with M$
<username> > Library > Application Support > remove anything with M$

 

[timeshifter]

Two thoughts.

One, I wonder what if any ill effects they could be seeing from those old versions on a modern Mac running macOS Monterey 12.1. I don't think any of the background code for 2008 and 2011 Office will even launch.

Second, if they've got an install that is still carrying around 14 year old software remnants a clean install at some point is probably warranted.

 

[Haole Boy]

I'd start by removing all of them. Then installing the current version. Obviously make sure data is backed up, like emails.
Documents Folder > I think old Outlook for Mac put the emails in there.
Apps folder . remove apps
<username> > Library > Application Support > remove anything with M$
<username> > Library > Containers > remove anything with M$
<username> > Library > Group Containers > remove anything with M$
<username> > Library > Preferences > remove anything with M$
<username> > Library > Saved Application State> remove anything with M$
<username> > Library > Application Support > remove anything with M$

Aloha Mark. Cleaning all this stuff out will satisfy my OCD, but will just removing the folders from the Apps folder suffice? Or, to say it another way, is there any harm in leaving the various bits in the <username>/Library folders? Also, they are using gmail, so I'm not sure they even know what Outlook is.

Two thoughts.

One, I wonder what if any ill effects they could be seeing from those old versions on a modern Mac running macOS Monterey 12.1. I don't think any of the background code for 2008 and 2011 Office will even launch.

Second, if they've got an install that is still carrying around 14 year old software remnants a clean install at some point is probably warranted.

I was not involved in getting their data and programs migrated over to the new iMac. I doubt they did it themselves as they do not seem overly computer savvy, but they have not admitted to having anyone there to help them in the 5 years since I was there last. It's been many years since I've upgraded a Mac. Maybe it is easy enough that non-techies can do it?

Mahalo

Harry Z

 

[Markverhyden]

Aloha Mark. Cleaning all this stuff out will satisfy my OCD, but will just removing the folders from the Apps folder suffice? Or, to say it another way, is there any harm in leaving the various bits in the <username>/Library folders? Also, they are using gmail, so I'm not sure they even know what Outlook is.



I was not involved in getting their data and programs migrated over to the new iMac. I doubt they did it themselves as they do not seem overly computer savvy, but they have not admitted to having anyone there to help them in the 5 years since I was there last. It's been many years since I've upgraded a Mac. Maybe it is easy enough that non-techies can do it?

Mahalo

Harry Z

Cleaning up stuff like that is a pet peeve as well. Like when I go onsite to do a wiring job and there's old stuff all over the place. Just deleting the objects from the Applications folder should be fine. Similar in idea to running uninstall on a W10 machine. That doesn't remove everything, there's still plenty of artifacts lying around in the registry, Application Data, etc, etc.