Microsoft now lets you use the basic Microsoft Office suite on your desktop PC without a subscription. You previously needed to log in with a paid Microsoft account to use it directly on your computer, but it now gives a “Continue for free” option if you don’t want to work on your browser or pay a monthly fee.
Microsoft 365 for Windows No Longer Requires a Subscription
You must pay for a Microsoft 365 subscription or buy Office 2024 if you want to use Microsoft’s productivity suite directly on your PC. The company does offer Office Online for free (which is one of the biggest reasons why you should use it) but you have to use it within your browser and stay connected to the internet to do so.
However, the software giant is now making it easier for those who prefer working with Microsoft Office directly on their computer (not through a browser). Instead of going through the hassle of finding ways to get a free Microsoft Office license, Microsoft will let you use its basic productivity apps—Excel, PowerPoint, and Word—for free.
To do so, you just need to download and install Microsoft 365 on your Windows computer, as usual. After you complete the installation process, launch any of the three aforementioned apps, and when you’re prompted to Sign in, click on Skip for now located in the lower-left corner of the Sign-in window.
You will then see the “Welcome to free Word, Excel, and PowerPoint” dialog box, and just choose the Continue for free option. In the next window, click on Save to OneDrive, which will save everything you do to your OneDrive account, and then you’re good to go.
A Few Caveats to Free Microsoft 365 for Windows
While Microsoft is finally making its basic productivity apps free, it’s actually worse off than Microsoft 365 Online. That’s because it still requires you to be online to save your work via OneDrive, which is also limited to 5 GB. This might not be an issue if you don’t really use your computer for anything except word processing. But if you do not manually configure your OneDrive account and also save your photos and videos on your PC, you’ll soon find yourself running out of storage space.
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This means you need to free up your OneDrive storage or purchase additional space, which essentially defeats the purpose of free Microsoft 365. After all, if you sign up for a Microsoft 365 subscription, you could get 1 TB of OneDrive cloud storage with it, depending on your plan.
Aside from that, you lose a lot of advanced features that paid Microsoft 365 users get, including line spacing, tables, columns, and more for Word. Free Microsoft Excel drops conditional formatting, pivot tables, colors, and more, while free PowerPoint ditches icons, SmartArt, charts, format background, and more. Also, all apps lose the add-in feature.
Since the app is free, Microsoft puts a persistent ad banner on the apps to entice you to use its other services. It will even show you a quick video every few hours hoping that you’ll eventually purchase something from the company. Also, this free version is only available on Windows—if you’re a macOS user, you have to pay up or use Apple’s built-in productivity suite instead.
In the end, you can only utilize these apps for the simplest of tasks, which is impractical for anyone needing them for work or school purposes. Plus, the annoyance of the ads might make you want to switch to free alternatives to Microsoft 365 instead. But if you prefer working directly on Windows, have a terabyte of cloud storage, and save your files locally, then the subscription might be good enough to pay for itself.