How to Find Your Microsoft Office Product Key (and Change or Remove It)

Quick answer: Where your Office product key lives depends on where you bought Office. If you bought it from the Microsoft Store or redeemed a card, it's in your Microsoft account and your purchase email. If you bought it from a reseller, it's in your order and delivery note. Your PC only stores the last five characters, which you can see with cscript ospp.vbs /dstatus. Microsoft 365 has no product key at all: it's tied to your subscription account.

Below are all the ways to find your key, plus how to change it and remove it from a PC.

What Does an Office Product Key Look Like?

An Office product key is 25 letters and numbers in groups of five:

XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX

Word, Excel and PowerPoint don't have separate keys. One key for your Office suite (for example Office 2024) activates every app in it.

Where Is My Office Product Key?

Where you got Office	Where the key is
Microsoft Store (online)	Your Microsoft account and the purchase confirmation email
Retail box or product key card	On the card or in the box, then in your account once redeemed at setup.office.com
A digital license reseller	Your order with the seller, the delivery email and the delivery note
Preinstalled on a new PC	Linked to the Microsoft account used to activate it
Work or school (volume license)	Your organization's IT department
Microsoft 365 subscription	There is no key, it's tied to your subscription account

Method 1: Check Your Microsoft Account

If you bought Office from the Microsoft Store or redeemed a key at setup.office.com:

1. Go to account.microsoft.com/services and sign in with the account you used for Office.
2. Find your Office product in the list.
3. If you see View product key under it, select it.

That link doesn't appear for every product. If it's missing, the key is already tied to your account and you don't need it to reinstall: download Office from the same page and sign in with the same account.

Method 2: Check Your Email and Order

Office bought online usually comes with the key in the purchase email. Search your inbox for Office, product key and order.

If you bought from a reseller, the key is in your order details and delivery email. Keys bought at aktivasyon.com are on the My orders page in your account.

Method 3: See the Last Five Characters on Your PC

Your PC doesn't store the full key, only its last five characters. That's enough to confirm which key is installed or to remove it.

1. Right-click Start and open Terminal (Admin).

2. Go to the Office folder (for 64-bit Office):

   cd "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16"
   

   For 32-bit Office the folder is C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office16.

3. Run:

   cscript ospp.vbs /dstatus
   

LICENSE NAME shows your Office edition, Last 5 characters of installed product key shows the end of the key and LICENSE STATUS shows whether it's activated.

About "key finder" apps: some apps claim to read your Office key from the PC. Since Office 2013 the full key isn't stored locally, so these tools usually show Office's generic setup key rather than yours, and some of them bundle malware. We don't recommend them.

How to Change Your Office Product Key

If you entered the wrong key or bought a new license:

1. Open Word or Excel and go to File > Account.
2. Select Change Product Key.
3. Enter the new 25-character key and activate.

If that option isn't there, change it from the command line:

cscript ospp.vbs /inpkey:XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX
cscript ospp.vbs /act

Every activation method is covered in our guide on how to activate Microsoft Office.

How to Remove an Office Product Key From Your PC

If you're selling your PC or switching to another license, remove the old key:

1. Run cscript ospp.vbs /dstatus and note the last five characters of the key you want to remove.

2. Run (replace XXXXX with those five characters):

   cscript ospp.vbs /unpkey:XXXXX
   

3. When it says "Product key uninstall successful", the key is gone.

Microsoft 365 uses an account instead of a key. To remove a PC from your subscription, sign out of that device under Installs for Microsoft 365 on account.microsoft.com/services, or use File > Account > Sign out in Office.

Can't Find Your Key?

• Bought from the Microsoft Store: check Order history in your Microsoft account or contact Microsoft Support.
• Bought from a reseller: contact the seller with your order number.
• Came with your PC: if Office is activated, you don't need the key to reinstall. Just sign in with the same Microsoft account.
• None of these work: you'll need a new license. Office 2024 suits people who don't want a subscription, and Microsoft 365 suits people who want always up-to-date apps. We compare them in Office 2024 vs Office 2021 vs Microsoft 365.