Microsoft Word, coming with a series of edit features, is mainly for writing text, TPS reports, and formatting documents efficaciously. No matter you are using previous Word versions of 2016, 2019 or using the new 2020, 2021, 2022 even 365 on Mac, it happens that you are just stuck with issues like Microsoft Word not responding, the wheel keeps spinning and you cannot save the work or open to edit a document.
Regardless of the cause for Word not responding, it is very important to save the unsaved work and troubleshoot this in time to avoid further malfunction. Here we will give several ways to get around this Word Not Responding issue, this post also covers a method to recover lost Word documents due to Word not responding.
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 third-party add-ons or plug-ins hinder the software
- 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 Word Document?
If Microsoft Word keeps showing the spinning wheel and you didn’t save the document, there are 3 ways at your disposal to save the unsaved work: Wait for a while, Leave only one document opening, and Force quit & retrieve unsaved work from auto recovery or temporary folder.
1. Wait for A While
Word not responding on Mac maybe 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 the Save button to save it. 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.
2. Close Other Word Documents If You Open Multiple Docs
If your Mac is running out 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 the Save button to save the unsaved work.
3. Force Quit and Save the Work
If your Word document continually freezes, hangs, or gives you a spinning rainbow ball of death, you need to just shut it down first, then retrieve the unsaved work using Word auto recovery or from the temporary folder.
Step 1. Force Quit Microsoft Word on Mac
To force quit the Microsoft Word application on Mac, we have 4 ways.
Method 1. From Dock
- Find the Word icon on the dock.
- Right-click (or hold down the Ctrl key + click) the icon.
- A contextual menu appears, choose the “Force Quick” option from the list.
Method 2. Use Finder or Shortcut
- Click on the apple icon in the upper-left corner of your screen and select “Force Quit” from the drop-down menu. (Or press and hold Ctrl + Alt+ Esc on the keyboard.)
- This brings up a dialogue box that showcases your running items. You should select Microsoft Word and click on the “Force Quick” button.
Method 3. Use Activity Monitor
- Open the Activity Monitor app.
- Select Microsoft Word in the process list.
- Click the button “X” in the upper-left of the window to force quit unresponsive Word on Mac.
Method 4. Use Terminal
- Open the Terminal app.
- Type the command “ps -ax | grep “Microsoft Word”, and press Enter key.
- Before the line which ends in “/Contents/MacOS/Microsoft Word”, there is a PID number. The number I got is 1246.
- Use the force quit command on Mac: type “kill 1246” to shut down crashed Word.
Step 2. Retrieve Unsaved Work
Method 1. Use Word Auto-Recovery Feature
By default, the Word AutoRecover feature is enabled to save Word documents 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.
- Find the unsaved file according to the following auto-saved location:
For Office Word 2016/2019/Office 365 in 2020/2021:
/Users//Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data/Library/Preferences/AutoRecovery
For Office Word 2011:
/Users//Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/Office 2011 AutoRecovery - Then open and save the unsaved work that was caused by Word not responding.
Method 2. From Temporary Folder
- Go to Finder>Application>Terminal.
- Input “open $TMPDIR” into the Terminal interface and press Enter to open the temporary folder, then go to the TemporaryItems folder.
- Find and open the unsaved work, then save it again.
What to Do When Word Not Responding on Mac?
To avoid any trouble in the future, we should fix the Word Not Responding issue. But what to do? Here are 7 fixes you should try.
Fix 1. Remove Adds-Ins
If your Word won’t open or keeps crashing on Mac, it might be the problem of incompatibility with 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 Word for Mac, I will show you an example.
- Open Word > navigate to Preferences > select Ribbon and Toolbar.
- Choose “Add-in” or “Complements” in the Developer tab, and then click the add arrow.
- At the top of the ribbon, click the new options icon.
- Deactivate “xxxx.dotm” file and delete it in Finder.
| Program | Old Add-In File Extension | New Add-In File Extension |
|---|---|---|
| Word | .dot | .dotm |
| Excel | .xla | .xlam |
| Powerpoint | .ppa | .ppam |
Fix 2. Update Your Word to Latest Version
- Open Word for Mac.
- On the top Menu, choose Help > Check for Updates.
- 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 opening on Mac.
- Restart your Mac computer, at the same time, Press and hold the Shift key.
- Release the key when the computer is turned on. You will see the Safe Boot on the Mac startup screen.
- Open Mac Word in Safe Mode.
Fix 4. 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 based 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 the Word file name.
Fix 5. Reset the Default Settings of Word
You can troubleshoot various components of Microsoft Word by resetting or deleting its preferred file. Apart from solving the Word not responding on Mac issue, it can also fix Word crashing problems or certain features not working. Resetting preference is not the ultimate solution for all Word problems, thus do not perform this operation too often.
- Quit Word document on Mac.
- Right-click the Finder icon in the dock and select “Go to Folder”.
- Type ~/Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/User Content/Templates command in the dialog box.
- Locate the files Normal. dorm and move it to the desktop.
- Go to the folder again, and type ~/Library/Preferences.
- Find out “com.microsoft.Word.plist” and “com.microsoft.Office.plist” files, and then move both of them to your desktop.
- Re-open your Word and check if the Mac Microsoft word not responding solved or not.
Fix 6. Repair Disk Permissions
- Open the Disk Utility app on Mac.
- Select the volume that you need to repair permissions from the left sidebar menu.
- Click on the “First Aid” tab.
- Click “Run” to start the disk repair process.
Fix 7. Uninstall Word, and Then Reinstall It Again
- Go to Finder > Applications.
- Select Microsoft Word, and right-click it.
- Choose “Move to Trash” from the context menu.
- Reinstall Word on www.office.com.
Reinstalling the software could be helpful for solving Word not responding to Mac issues. 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
- Locate Microsoft Word in the dock.
- Hold Ctrl + click, and select Options.
- Choose Remove from Dock.
How to Recover Lost, Deleted Word Document Due to Word Not Responding on Mac?
Still nothing? That means your file was permanently lost after Microsoft Word not responding the issue. The ultimate rescue, I think, is to install a powerful data recovery program.
MacDeed 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, audio, photos, emails, and so on. Meanwhile, this software works for different file lost situations: not responding, formatted, virus attacks, accidental deletion, the system crashed, etc.
Best Data Recovery for Mac and Windows: Recover Word Documents with Ease
- Recover Word files from internal & external drives
- Recover lost, deleted, missing, and formatted Word document
- Support recovery on 200+ file types: docs, videos, audio, images, etc.
- Preview lost files before final recovery (video, photo, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Keynote, Pages, etc.)
- Work on APFS, HFS+, FAT16, FAT32, exFAT, ext2, ext3, ext4 , and NTFS
- Quickly search files with the filter tool
- Recover files to a local drive or cloud
Step 1. Select the drive.
Launch MacDeed Data Recovery on Mac. Go to Disk Data Recovery, and select the drive where stored the lost Word document.
Step 2. Scan and preview the Word document.
MacDeed Data Recovery instantly searches the chosen drive for lost word files, and you can stop the search at any moment if you’ve found the files you like to retrieve. The Tree View contains classifications such as Deleted Files, Current Files, Lost Position, RAW Files, and Tag Files. You can also use File View to look at file types like Image, Video, File, Audio, Email, and others. Furthermore, on the left side of the panel, you can seek intended files or use Strainer to narrow your search.
Step 3. Preview & Recover Permanently Deleted Word Documents.
After locating the target files, you can preview and recover them on your computer. A warm tip is that you should not save the deleted word document to the original location.
Conclusion
That’s all for fixing Microsoft Word not responding, we still have chances to save the unsaved work or recover lost word documents caused by this issue. The most important thing we should do after running into a Word Not Responding error is to fix it, we list 7 fixes as above. To avoid unsaved work, my advice would be to turn on the AutoRecover feature and always back up your Word file regularly.