Turn off Microsoft apps 'Microsoft AutoUpdate' app on a Mac

Microsoft used to just do a system notification you could easily disable. Now they launch the Microsoft AutoUpdate program process once per day.

This interrupts 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!

Microsoft AutoUpdate dock icon. (Note that badges are not enabled in System Preferences > Notifications, so this red "1" appears to be drawn in the app icon itself.)

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

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

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

4 Answers

I've been annoyed by the Microsoft AutoUpdater long too. Too many times it intrusively interrupted my work. So I decided to disable it and below was 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

Based on Lacek's suggestion, here is my solution to turn off Microsoft Auto Update, but retain the ability to run it manually:

# check current config
plutil -p /Library/LaunchAgents/com.microsoft.update.agent.plist
# apply new values
sudo plutil -replace Disabled -integer 1 /Library/LaunchAgents/com.microsoft.update.agent.plist
sudo plutil -replace RunAtLoad -integer 0 /Library/LaunchAgents/com.microsoft.update.agent.plist
sudo plutil -replace StartInterval -integer 10368000 /Library/LaunchAgents/com.microsoft.update.agent.plist
# check new config
plutil -p /Library/LaunchAgents/com.microsoft.update.agent.plist

The only methods I know (applicable to Oct 2020, Office 365, version 16.42, build 2010 11 01):

1. Open an Office app > Help menu > Check for updates > click around and disable/uncheck autoupdate. If your security settings has this disabled and you have access to modify programs, try #2.
2. While Microsoft Update (what ever the latest name is) is still open, right click on the program icon in the tray. Options > Show in Finder. Close the update dialog. Delete or move the program. You can always reinstall. If you try #1 again, you will get an error which means it worked.

The microsoft autupdater app resides in a folder called MAU2.0, which is located in library>application support > microsoft. I've pulled the whole mau2.0 folder and placed it elsewhere. The app does not run at startup any more. Hopefully when I need to update, I can drop it back in the appropriate folder and run autoupdater.