Upgrading macOS for Microsoft 365 compatibility on early 2015 MacBook Pro

Microsoft supports the three most recent macOS versions: 14, 15, and 26 (2026).

That decade-old Mac is too old for that, and lacks the hardware expected for newer macOS.

Best solution for using Microsoft apps and services: buy a Microsoft Windows 11 PC.

Next best for Microsoft apps and services: acquire a Mac that can run one the three most recent versions, and pretty much any Apple silicon model from the last five ~years can, and the late-era Intel Macs that are supported recent versions. macOS 26 is the last version with support for Intel Macs, too.

Alternatives to 365: LibreOffice, Apple Pages, Numbers and Keynote, or one of the other alternatives to Microsoft 365.

RobShanghai wrote:

Early 2015 MacBook Pro currently version 12.7.6 needed to renew my Miscosoft office suit for Mac. Appears to be an upgraded version that states "This software requires macOS version 14.0 or later."

Is it possibl to upgrade the Mac's software to this and if so where / how as MacBook system states its up-to-date

The MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015) shipped with Yosemite or El Capitan, and for it, the end of the line is macOS 12.* (Monterey). That represents seven major upgrades (six if you count starting from El Capitan).

Monterey fell out of "the most recent three" a little over a year ago, when Sequoia came out. With Tahoe's release, Monterey is now two versions behind the oldest of the "most recent three."

Monterey is still enough to run current versions of

• The Firefox Web browser and other major third-party Web browsers
• The LibreOffice office suite
• Several graphics editors that support editing using layers

I believe for your 2015 MacBook Pro, your OS compatibility has ran to the end and no longer supports later macOS versions. The reason why it says its up-to-date is because that's the highest OS version it can support and ever get.

I would start to explore and try to buy a new Mac that would support macOS 14+ to be able to use Microsoft 365.

Hope this helps!

• KaffeeCoffee

RobShanghai wrote:

Frustrating as the 2015 MacBook Pro works perfectly fine for my needs. Seems the only reason they do this is to force you to buy and new computer ?

You will want to address your feedback to Microsoft. Their apps, their services, their requirements.

A ten year old Mac won’t run a whole lot of the recent apps anyway, and will have other issues. Five to probably seven years usage is about the outside limit for app support. This Mac is also Intel, which is last supported with the current macOS 26.

Why not long-term support? It’s a trade-off. Supporting older versions is not free. Extending support can increase the difficulty of designing and adopting and testing new app features, too.

Here, you can use one of the fine alternatives that do support older macOS versions. That may well be LibreOffice, because — unless you previously acquired Pages, Numbers or Keynote — Apple too will want a newer macOS version.

Or if you have an older Microsoft Office app license (probably Office 2016 or Office 2019, here), continue to use that license, and those older apps.

This same Microsoft 365 support question gets posted around here too, so have a look around at the previous discussions of this topic. LibreOffice comes up in this unhappy-with-Microsoft-support context pretty regularly, so you can search for that.

RobShanghai wrote:

Frustrating as the 2015 MacBook Pro works perfectly fine for my needs. Seems the only reason they do this is to force you to buy and new computer ?

Microsoft policy is what is forcing this.

Your Apple Macintosh computer can still do everything it could do the day you took it out of the box, plus a whole lot more as Apple has handed you several MacOS upgrades for free.

The computer has NOT fallen short -- It is your desires that have expanded.