Mac – Turn off Microsoft Apps auto update on a Mac

macmicrosoft-officeupdates

Microsoft used to just do a system notification you could easily disable. Now they launch the auto update program once per day (interrupting whatever you are doing to put the focus on the auto update app — watching a show? Streaming on Twitch? Sorry, it is now time to let you know… we didn't find any update for Office, but don't worry we checked!

Today of course I had an update, but usually, it says no updates found.

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This is mind-numbingly frustrating and I have unchecked the 'Automatically Download and Install' checkbox.

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Is there a way to prevent this short of deleting the auto update app entirely?

Best Answer

I've been annoyed the Microsoft AutoUpdater long too. Too many times it intrusively interrupt my work. So I decided to disable it and below is how I did it:

  1. Open Terminal

  2. Disable it:

    # disable the service
launchctl disable gui/$(id -u)/com.microsoft.update.agent

# check that the service is disabled
launchctl print-disabled gui/$(id -u) | grep microsoft

    Alternatively if you wish not to disable the auto update but change the interval to launch the checking:

    # check current config content
plutil -p /Library/LaunchAgents/com.microsoft.update.agent.plist

# backup
cp -a /Library/LaunchAgents/com.microsoft.update.agent.plist /somewhere/to/backup/

# update the interval, e.g. 43200 seconds (i.e. 12 hours)
sudo plutil -replace StartInterval -integer 43200 /Library/LaunchAgents/com.microsoft.update.agent.plist
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