Office connected experiences

Update as of 16-Oct-2023 (APAC time zone):

Microsoft Community members reported that this problem was fixed in the latest updates which went live in the USA on 10-Oct-2023 (11 Oct for me).

I've since updated all of my Microsoft 365 apps and so far the annoying pop up is gone! Yay :)

HOWEVER - Microsoft really needs to change their "Connected Experience" so that one can take advantage of things like "online help" and other downloadable experiences - without also agreeing to share (upload) their content to Microsoft servers. This is a HUGE RISK from a CYBER SECURITY + PRIVACY perspective.

I've been getting this pop up too. After an extremely frustrating 2 hours on the phone with Microsoft - still no resolution, and then the call dropped! No callback or reply to my MS case email either....

Lots of other people are reporting problems in Microsoft forums: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/how-to-stop-the-use-office-connected-experiences/30fb3510-3572-4757-962c-5ce1720fc67e

If you look at what happens with connected experiences, it's a cyber security + privacy nightmare (Microsoft wants to analyze your data): https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/how-to-stop-the-use-office-connected-experiences/30fb3510-3572-4757-962c-5ce1720fc67e

Connected experiences uses machine learning (your data is in a huge database somewhere)! https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/deployoffice/privacy/connected-experiences-content#connected-experiences-and-machine-learning

This supposedly is how to turn it off - but it does NOT work.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/office/connected-experiences-in-microsoft-365-8d2c04f7-6428-4e6e-ac58-5828d4da5b7c

And the instructions to turn it off only apply ONLY to Windows: go to File > Account > Manage Settings (In Outlook it's under Office Account) - there is no  "File > Account >  > Manage Settings" in the Mac apps!

While on the phone with Microsoft, we also tried to use the Microsoft_Office_License_Removal tool - as they thought it was something cached. No go - don't bother trying.

Office worked fine with version 16.75 - but the Pop Ups started with later updates. I've rolled back to 16.75 - but now have a yellow banner across my Word documents with nagware to update..... and I'm not on the latest version, which means there could be security holes patched in later versions. Really quite disgusted by this.

Microsoft refuses to accept that this a Mac software bug in Office 365 (Ventura) ! There is no option that allows you to select "download online content" such as Help without enabling "all connected experiences"

Beware - if you turn this on, then you are allowing Microsoft to analyse your data which may contain very personal info or sensitive client data. And keeping "Connected Services" off means no Help files are available to find functions ++++

I'm wondering if there's some preference file hidden away somewhere that can be deleted?

I'm sure lots of us would appreciate an Apple rep helping out here!

Hi peregrineguy,

Thanks for posting in Apple Support Communities.

What you're seeing is a feature from Microsoft to assist with what you're working on. You can find out more and work with them for removing this.

Connected experiences in Office - Deploy Office | Microsoft Learn

Regards.