How to handle ins and outs of your Microsoft apps
Q: I recently purchased a laptop and want to add it to my existing Office 365 account which allows me to install it on 5 devices. I cannot figure out how to add the new laptop to my account. Can you help?
A: Office 365 uses your Microsoft account to manage the licensing.
If you want to install Office 365 on a new computer you will need to go to www.microsoft.com and download the software and install it.
Once you have the software installed and you run one of the applications like Word or Excel, it should prompt you to sign into the application with your Microsoft account credentials that will activate the software.
The license does allow for installation on 5 devices. If you have used it for more than that you will need to deauthorize one of the devices you are no longer using.
You can do that by going to account.microsoft.com/devices where you can manage any devices tied to your Microsoft account.
Q: I am using Outlook on my Mac and I noticed that I have not received any new email messages in the last few days. If I check my mail on my phone, I can see that there are new messages. Any idea why Outlook is not seeing them?
A: Outlook has a feature called Offline Mode that is designed to allow you to work with your email even when you don’t have internet access. This mode typically switches on and off automatically. But sometimes it gets stuck in Offline Mode.
To change this, click on Tools and you will see a button that toggles between Online Mode and Offline Mode. Switch to the Online and your messages should start to download.
If you are using the new Outlook interface, just click on Outlook in the upper menu and you can check or uncheck the option for Work Offline.
Outlook has a similar feature you can find if you click on the Send/Receive tab.