Microsoft 365 End of Support for Office 2016/2019 Clients
As of October 10, 2023, Microsoft will no longer support Office 2016 and 2019 for connecting to Microsoft 365 cloud services. These services include Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and OneDrive for Business.
You may be thinking, “Wait, that can’t be right, I know I read that Office 2016 is supported until October 14, 2025.” While accurate, as outlined in these documented support dates, it is important to appreciate the distinction between “supported” and “supported for connectivity to Microsoft 365 services”, especially with the October 2023 end date for the latter quickly approaching.
Microsoft will not “flip a switch” to administratively break connectivity for Office 2016/2019 clients on October 10, 2023. Rather, the impact will be that new features and changes made to the Microsoft 365 cloud services will not be tested against Office 2016/2019 as they are no longer part of the support model. Features added to the service on/after October 10, 2023 may not work for users connecting with Office 2016/2019 clients and changes made after that date may partially or completely break Office 2016/2019’s connectivity to Microsoft 365. Since these changes are all ‘by design’, the resulting challenges will not be addressed by Microsoft.
If/when something breaks in the connection between Office 2016/2019 and Microsoft 365 services, you will need to either upgrade your Office suite to a supported version, or shift to using the browser-based Office Online apps. Note that supported versions will include supported releases of Microsoft 365 Apps and Office LTSC 2021.
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