Microsoft Word Not Responding on Mac? How to Save and What to Do

When you launch or perform certain actions in Microsoft Word app that you work with regularly, but it doesn’t respond, you will feel frustrated. Though Mac does an excellent job with software optimization, it is still normal for your Word app to behave this way on your Mac. 

This often happens when we are editing a large file, running many apps on a Mac or after updating the Word app to versions that released in 2023, 2022, 2021 or earlier (Microsoft 365, 2021, 2019).

Regardless of the causes for Word not responding, it is very important to save and recover the unsaved work and trouble shoot this in time to avoid further malfunction. Here we will give several ways to save your unsaved Word document when it is not responding, and covers a full guide to fix Word Not Working on Mac once for all.

Possible Reasons behind MS Word Not Responding on Mac

When your Microsoft Word won’t open or has stopped working on Mac all of a sudden, the possible reasons could be:

• The Excel program isn’t updated to the latest version
• The third-party add-ons or the plug-ins hinder the software
• Excel may be used by another process
• MS Word preferences are corrupted
• The virus or malware infected the operating system of your Mac (Install an anti-virus program)
• Unexpected power disturbance or sudden closing of Word document
• Programs or hardware bugs interfere with Mac Word

Word Not Responding on Mac? How to Save the Unsaved Work?

It is not a big issue if Microsoft Word hangs or freezes when you just launch the app or open a workbook, we just need to close or force quit the program. But if your Word application keeps showing the spinning wheel during the editing process or after clicking the Save button, the urgent task is to save the unsaved document.

There are 4 ways at your disposal to save the unsaved work when Word not responding on Mac : Use a data recovery program, wait for a while, leave only one document opening, force quit & retrieve unsaved work from auto recovery folder.

1. Recover the Unsaved Work Quickly if Word Not Responding on Mac

The ultimate rescue for unsaved work when Word is not responding, is to install a powerful data recovery program, which increases the chances to restore files as many as possible.

Cisdem Data Recovery for Mac is a superb file undelete program. It goes further than others in restoring data from all kinds of devices, ranging from digital cameras to hard disks. Besides Word documents, it also recovers any file types, like videos, audios, photos, emails and so on. Meanwhile, this software works for different file lost situations: not responding, formatted, virus attacked, accidental deletion, system crashed, damaged videos, etc.

What’s the more impressive, it can also recover unsaved Word, Excel, PowerPoint files. All the unsaved documents will be collected in one folder for recovery, also you can use the filter to search an unsaved Word document from the scanning result. 

• Step 1. Download and install Cisdem Data Recovery on your Mac.
  Free Download
• Step 2. Select the drive.
  Launch Cisdem Data Recovery on Mac. Go to Hardware Disk, select the drive where stored the unsaved Word document. Then click Search for lost files to start finding files on your drive.
• Step 3. Find the unsaved Word document on Mac.
  Directly find the unsaved Word files in Unsaved Documents or go to Type>Document, check the Word documents in DOCX or DOC folder. 
• Step 4. Preview the unsaved Word document.
• Step 5. Retrieve Word File.
  Select the Word documents that you want to recover. At last, click "Recover" button or right click the files to recover to local drive or cloud.

2. Wait for A While

Word not responding on Mac may be just because it needs a little more time to load the file and software updates. If you are not in rush, give it more time to respond, then click Save button to save it. 

But how long to wait when Word not responding on Mac? That depends on your Mac performance and the file size of the Word document you are trying to save. I once was able to open and save the work successfully after waiting for approx. 20 minutes when it didn’t respond, I just left it aside and performed other tasks on my Mac.

3. Close Other Word Documents If You Open Multiple Docs

If your Mac is running our of space and you are opening a large Word document, you’d better open one document per time. If you open multiple Word documents, close others that you don't have to process for now, so your Word application will be under full gear for processing one document at that time. If Word responds later, click Save button to save the unsaved work.

4. Force Quit and Save the Work

Step 1. Force Quit Microsoft Word on Mac

1. Click on the apple icon in the upper-left corner of your screen, then select “Force Quit” from the drop-down menu.
2. This brings up a dialogue box that showcases your running items. You should select Microsoft Word and click on “Force Quit” button.

Step 2. Retrieve Unsaved Work 

By default, the Word AutoRecover feature is enabled to save Word document automatically every 5 or 10 minutes, if you don’t disable this feature, you can save the unsaved work by opening and saving this auto saved file.

1. Find the unsaved file according to following auto-saved location:
   For Office Word 2016/2019/Office 365:
   /Users//Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data/Library/Preferences/AutoRecovery
   For Office Word 2011:
   /Users//Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/Office 2011 AutoRecovery
2. Then open and save the unsaved work that caused by Word not responding. 

What to Do When Word Not Working on Mac after Update 2023/2022/2021?

To avoid any trouble in the future, we should fix Word Not Responding issue. But what to do? Here are 8 fixes you should try.

Fix 1. Remove Adds-Ins

If your Word won’t open or keeps crashing on Mac, it might be the problems of incompatibility third-party add-ins. Many Add-Ins will not work on Office 64-bit version but on the 32-bit version. To remove add-ins on the Word for Mac, I will show you an example.

1. Open Word > navigate to Preferences > select Ribbon and Toolbar.
2. Choose "Add-in" or "Complements" in the Developer tab, and then click the add arrow.
3. At the top of the ribbon, click the new options icon.
4. Deactivate "xxxx.dotm" file and delete it in Finder.

Fix 2. Update Your Word to Latest Version

1. Open Word for Mac.
2. On the top Menu, choose Help > Check for Updates.
3. Select “Automatically Download and Install” from the pop up AutoUpdate window.

Fix 3. Open Word in Safe Mode

Safe Mode enables you to safely use Microsoft Word when it has encountered frozen, crashing and not open on Mac.

1. Restart your Mac computer, at the same time, Press and hold the Shift key.
2. Release the key when computer is turned on. You will see the Safe Boot on Mac startup screen.
3. Open Mac Word in Safe Mode.

Fix 4. Check Mac and OneDrive Storage Space

Word allows users to save files in 2 locations, local drive or onedrive, if your Word keeps crashing or not responding on Mac, you’d better check the storage space on your Mac or onedrive to make sure there is enough space to save the changes and make the program work properly.

Check the Mac storage space

Click Apple icon>About This Mac>Storage. 

Check the OneDrive storage space

Login into your OneDrive account> Settings>Options>Manage storage

If you don’t have enough space, empty your trash bin or delete unwanted files manually.

Fix 5. Delete Invalid Characters from File Name

MS Word not responding on Mac may be caused by the file name which contains invalid characters and symbols.

Office 2011 was rewritten basing on the features of Office 2007 and Office 2010. There are some accidental PC codes in 2011 that don’t permit certain forbidden characters, such as “<>”, “<< >>”, “{}”, “\”, “|”, “/”, superscript/subscript, the number before the name, etc.. So, if your file was created in Word 2016, 2019, or other versions, it won’t open in Microsoft 2011, unless you remove the invalid characters from Word file name.

Fix 6. Reset the Default Settings of Word

You can troubleshoot various components of Microsoft Word by resetting or deleting its preference file. Apart from solving the Word not responding on Mac issue, it can also fix Word crashing problem or certain features not working. Resetting preference is not the ultimate solution for all Word problem, thus do not perform this operation too often.

1. Quit Word document on Mac.
2. Right-click Finder icon in the dock and select “Go to Folder”.
3. Type ~/Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/User Content/Templates command in the dialog box.
4. Locate the files Normal.dotm and move it to the desktop.
5. Go to folder again, and type ~/Library/Preferences.
6. Find out com.microsoft.Word.plist and com.microsoft.Office.plist files, and then move both of them to your desktop.
7. Re-open your Word and check if the Mac Microsoft word not responding solved or not.

Fix 7. Repair Disk Permissions

1. Open Disk Utility app on Mac.
2. Select the volume that you need to repair permissions from the left sidebar menu.
3. Click on the “First Aid” tab.
4. Click “Run” to start the disk repair process.

Fix 8. Uninstall Word, and Then Reinstall It Again

1. Go to Finder > Applications.
2. Select Microsoft Word, and right-click it.
3. Choose “Move to Trash” from the context menu.
4. Reinstall Word on www.office.com.

Reinstall the software could be helpful for solving Word not responding Mac issue. But before that, make sure you have completely uninstalled it.

Tips 1. Remove all library files created by Microsoft Word

Check the following directories:

• ~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word
• ~Library/Application Support
• ~Library/LaunchDaemons
• ~Library/PrivilegedHelperTools
• ~Library/Caches
• ~Library/Preferences

Tips 2. Remove Microsoft Word from the dock

1. Locate Microsoft Word in the dock.
2. Hold Ctrl + click, and select Options.
3. Choose Remove from Dock.

Write in the End

That’s all for fixing Microsoft Word not responding, we still have chances to save the unsaved work caused by this issue. The most important thing we should do after running into Word Not Responding error is to fix it, we list 8 fixes as above. To avoid unsaved work, my advice would be to turn on AutoRecover feature and always backup your Word file regularly.