It’s official: Microsoft is terminating future support for its popular Office 2021 suite of productivity applications, including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

While the computing giant claims that your apps “may continue to function,” it also warns of exposure to “serious and potentially harmful security risks” if you continue using their now unsupported software after Oct. 13, 2026, the official end date.

In all likelihood, Office 2021 will continue to work as intended for most users in most use cases, much as you can still use Office 2010 or Office 2013, provided you’re willing to put up with the limitations of those iterations.

And for all the consumers concerned with owning rather than leasing their software, Office 2024 offers a “lifetime license” purchase, conferring permanent access to essential applications like Word, Powerpoint and Excel without the costly infrastructure of cloud storage or frequent, down-the-line software updates. 

Otherwise, upgrading means switching to Microsoft 365.

To learn more about the end of support for Office 2021, Microsoft has an entire post on its support section with all the details.