Microsoft - Office performance issues on Apple M1 silicon Mac

Microsoft - Office performance issues on Apple M1 silicon Mac

Problem

When using Microsoft Office 365 apps installed on an Apple M series Macs, the app appears to be operating very slowly.


Resolution

Older versions of Microsoft Office 365 had Intel instructions that required the use of the Rosetta 2 translation layer as they were not optimised for Apple silicon architection.  Shortly after the introduction of Apple silicon M series architecture Microsoft released native versions that do not requir the rosetta 2.0 translation layer.  Run the auto-update to fix the problem.


Update Microsoft Office

  1. Open one of your Office apps eg Microsoft Word.
  2. Then click "Help" and then "Check for updates".
  3. In the interface click the "Check for updates" and make sure that all your apps get updated.
  4. When finished close the updater.

Disable opening in Rosetta

If you update Microsoft Office these instructions should not be necessary but provided here in case it is required.

  1. Then open Finder > Applications and right click one of the Microsoft Office apps.
  2. Then either right click and choose "Get info" in the menu or press command+I do the same.
  3. In the information panel and look for a checkbox called "Open in Rosetta" and make sure it is NOT checked.
  4. After making the change close the Get into window and try the app again.

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