U-M Microsoft Office 365 is only available to current University of Michigan faculty, staff, students, sponsored affiliates, and emeritus with regular (not temporary) uniqnames. Alumni and retirees are not included in our license with Microsoft and lose access to Office 365 when they leave U-M. For information on how to save your files from OneDrive, see Office 365 Accounts for People Who Leave U-M.
U-M Google accounts are available, as an alternative, to all active faculty, staff, students, retirees, and alumni on the Ann Arbor, Dearborn, and Flint campuses. If you do not already have a U-M Google account, one will be created for you.
You can access this account by navigating to the U-M Google website in your web browser, selecting an app, and signing in with your UMICH uniqname and password. If you are unable to access this account, contact the ITS Service Center for assistance.
- What do you mean by Office 365?
Office 365 includes all web applications that are accessible via portal.office.com. It also includes the downloaded Office 2016 applications that are installed locally on your computer. - Why am I losing my U-M Office 365 account?
Alumni and retirees are not included in U-M’s agreement with Microsoft. Therefore, accounts and data owned by alumni and retirees must be deleted when they no longer have an active affiliation at U-M. - How can I keep using Office 365?
You can purchase an Office 365 account directly from Microsoft for your own personal use.Important:- Do not use a umich.edu email address when purchasing a personal Office 365 account as it could cause issues with authentication.
- You will need to download your files from OneDrive, and then upload them to your new, personally-owned Office 365 account.
- Can I still use my Office 365 documents (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.) if I don’t buy a personal Office 365 account?
Yes. You can upload, open, convert and use your files with U-M Google (Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, etc.) if you move your data from OneDrive to Google Drive. - I have a free Microsoft Office 365 account that I acquired using my umich.edu email address. Can I keep that?
No. Because of our agreement with Microsoft, any Office 365 accounts created with umich.edu addresses are restricted to those with active university affiliations. Some alumni and retirees with existing Office 365 accounts were temporarily left within the U-M system while a transition strategy was developed. - Will this impact my use of Office 365 software that is locally installed on my computer?
Yes. 30 days after you lose your U-M affiliation, any Office 2016 software that was installed while actively affiliated at the university will only be able to view documents (read only.) It will not be able to edit Office documents again until you have a new, personal, paid license for Office 365. Or, you can use Google to access and edit the documents.