In the traditional Office MSI packages, you could use the Office Customization Tool or a configuration file to control which apps your users received and now using the new Office Deployment Tool for Click-to-Run (download page) and May 2014 or newer builds of Office, you can do this now as well.
Usually, when you open an Office Word/Excel/PowerPoint file downloaded/received from the web or some other locations potentially dangerous for the computer system, Office program will open the file in 'Protected View', and you will be prompted with the 'Protected View' alert message.
'Protected View' is one of the security features built-in Microsoft Office 2010-2016 for protecting your computer from viruses, malware, or anything unsafe possibly embedded in the Office document. However, being frequently blocked with such a prompt may be annoying and sometimes unnecessary for you so that you may wonder how to remove it. Now, this page will show how to enable/disable Protected View in Office 2016.
How to enable/disable Protected View in Office 2016 Word/Excel/PowerPoint
An Office document that opens in protected view mode can't be edited. If you trust the source of this document, just need to click the Enable editing button to remove the 'Protected view' so that you can edit the document. However, this is temporary. Next time you open a Word document, it will still open in protected view mode. To permanently disable 'Protected View' in Office 2016, do as follows.
Step 1: Open one already existing Office document, such as Word. Or create and open a new Office document.
Step 2: Select the File -> Options tab.
Step 3: After the Word Options dialog opens, select Trust Center on the left-side pane and then click Trust Center Settings button on the right-side pane.
Step 4: After the Trust Center dialog opens, select Protected View. 'Protected View' is enabled by default. To disable it, uncheck the boxes next to the corresponding items and click OK. If you want to disable 'Protected View' in Excel/PowerPoint 2016, the steps are the same.
Then you won’t be prompted with the Protected View warning next time when you open an Office file downloaded/received from the internet or other location.
Tips: 'Protected View' is actually one very useful feature to secure computer system from potentially dangerous programs/files. Once a Word/Excel/PowerPoint document is received from the Internet or other places, Office program will detect it. Once potential safety problems are found, Office will open the document in an environment isolated from the computer system, which is just the 'Protected View'. This prevents the virus or malware running on your computer. Hence, You are not recommended to disable “Protected View” feature in Office 2016/2013/2010 unless you are pretty sure you won't open any potentially unsafe Office files or you've installed anti-virus software on your computer.
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- How to Unprotect Word Document 2016 without Knowing Password
If you're troubleshooting Office and would like to remove the license files on your Mac, you can use the license removal tool. This will completely remove all licenses for Office for Mac.
Important: Before using the tool, make sure you have the correct account info and password associated with your purchase of Office available for when you reactivate.
This tool can also help if you've subscribed to Office 365 but previously had a one-time purchase of Office for Mac on your computer, and aren't seeing certain subscription features. This can be due to your copy of Office still using the license of your one-time purchase and not your subscription.
Before you begin
1. Check what license your version of Office is currently using. See, What version of Office am I using?
Note: If you're looking for subscription features and your version is using an Office 365 subscription license, then you don't need to do the rest of these steps. You're already using the correct license. See When do I get the newest features for Office 365? for more info on why you may not be seeing subscription features yet.
2. If you aren't uninstalling the Office apps to reinstall them later, quit out of all Office apps. If you've already uninstalled Office, go to the next step.
Download and run the license removal tool
1. Download the license removal tool.
2. Open the .pkg file from your Mac's Downloads folder.
Note: If you get an 'unidentified developer' error, try opening the file by holding Control + clicking the file > Open.
3. Select Continue and follow the prompts in the setup wizard.
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Caution: We recommend you double-check that you have the correct account info ready by logging into Office.com/signin and checking for the license you want to activate with.
4. When you're ready to complete the license removal, select Install. You may need to enter your Mac's local admin account password.
After the tool successfully removes licenses, select Close.
5. Now launch any Office app and sign in to activate with the email account associated with your Office for Mac license. If you're troubleshooting an issue, you may need to reinstall Office before signing in.
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After you've successfully activated, restart your computer and then you're good to go!
Note: If your account has both an Office 365 for Mac license and a one-time purchase associated with it, you'll be prompted to choose which license you want to activate with. We recommend always choosing Office 365 for Mac if available.
Delete Office 2016 Mac
6. Uninstall the License Removal Tool by dragging the Microsoft_Office_License_Removal file from Finder > Downloads to Trash.