Before discussing solutions to Microsoft word keeps crashing mac, it’s important to consider what may have caused the problem. In this way, you could understand why Microsoft Word keeps crashing on Mac and you can even avoid it in the future.
Why does Microsoft Word keep crashing on Mac?
- Mostly, MS Word fails due to a bug in the Office suite of the tool itself. Most likely, the application could not be installed properly.
- You may be running an old or incompatible version of Word on your Mac.
- If you are using a pirated version of MS Word then it might have been corrupted as well.
- Sometimes Mac doesn’t grant permissions to third-party applications (such as Word), causing them to function incorrectly.
- The disk where MS Word was installed could also be damaged.
- The location of the MS Word application could have been moved to another location.
- The application crashed before or was closed during a process, leaving it defective or corrupt.
- It is likely that MS Word could have been infected by malware.
How to fix “Microsoft Word keeps crashing on Mac”
The good news is that most of these problems can be easily solved if we follow the correct approach. Ideally, you can fix the Microsoft Word problem with these options.
1. Verify the name of the hard drive
An incompatible hard disk name is one of the most common problems for Word not working properly.
This is because Mac is more flexible in naming a hard drive, while Windows has certain restrictions.
If necessary, you may also need to rename the hard drive to fix this. Here we show you how you can verify and rename the hard drive on Mac, to make it compatible with Word.
- Just click on the Apple logo in the upper left corner of the desktop and open the Applications tab. Go to the utility section to open the Disk Utility window.
- Select your Mac hard drive from the left, see its name and other details on the right (under the “Partitions” tab).
- Make sure the unit has a name, it must start with a character. Although it can have numbers, they should not be just numbers or special characters. Make the necessary changes to rename the hard drive.
Once you have renamed the hard drive, you can restart Mac and try accessing MS Word again.
2. Delete the automatic recovery folder
As you know, autosave is a built-in feature in MS Word that automatically saves the document running in the background.
It allows us to recover our files if they are lost or closed unexpectedly.
However, sometimes the AutoRecover folder can cause some conflict with the application itself, causing it to crash.
Therefore, you can consider erasing it to fix your Word that keeps crashing on Mac.
- To get started, simply launch Finder on your Mac and from its menu, click Go> Go to Folder
- Now, copy and paste the path “~ / Library / Containers / com.microsoft.Word / Data / Library / Preferences / AutoRecovery /” on your Mac (without quotes).
- Clicking “Go” will open the AutoRecover folder. From here, you can delete the automatically saved files so that the folder is deleted.
3. Reset Word preferences
Sometimes the reason for Microsoft Word crashing on Mac could also be wrong preferences in the application. To resolve this, you can reset the preferences completely and try restarting Word.
- First of all, select the Word icon on the desktop and go to the preferences option> from the menu.
- Since the Word Preferences tab would open, click on the “File Locations” icon.
- This will open the File Locations feature on the screen. Click on the “User Templates” option and choose “Reset.”
- You can also click the “Modify” button to see it. Here you can see a “Normal” file. You can cut and paste it to any other location (like your desktop) or just move it to the Trash.
After resetting Word preferences, please restart the application and check if MS Word crash is fixed or not.
4. Save the Word document to another location
In addition to the MS Word application, there could be a problem with the Mac storage. For example, if the particular partition or sector on the hard drive has been corrupted, then you should try to save your documents elsewhere.
This will help you avoid Word crash or also avoid losing your important files.
5. Download and install Word updates
As stated above, one of the reasons Microsoft Word crashes on Mac could be that an older version of the application is being used.
If the MS Word application has not been updated for a while, you may run into Mac compatibility issues.
The best way to fix the MS Word crash on Mac is to update it. It will not only fix the Microsoft Word crash on your Mac, but it will also make the application more secure by installing the necessary patches.
6. Create another user account on Mac
Although it may sound surprising, there could also be a problem with your user account on Mac. For example, the account you are accessing could be blocked from using certain applications or there could be a crash with some commands.
To avoid this problem and fix the Microsoft Word application that keeps crashing on your Mac, simply create another account on your system.
In the end, you can log out from the current account and log into the new account. Now, try to open MS Word and see if the problem is solved or not.
7. Start your Mac in safe mode
Like Windows, you can also start your Mac system in a safe mode. Safe mode is used primarily for troubleshooting and automatically triggers various child processes.
In this way, you can check if there is a problem with the MS Word application or your Mac system.
Here is how you can start your Mac in safe mode and fix Microsoft Word crash on Mac.
8. Run disk utility to fix Word crash
If none of the techniques mentioned above fix the MS Word crash on your Mac, then you can consider repairing the entire disk. Although it will take a long time, it will ensure that your Mac’s drive remains safe and in good condition.
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