Microsoft 365 Family (Office 365 Home)

What is included in Microsoft 365 Family?

Word, Excel, PowerPoint – Full desktop apps for Windows and Mac, for every member.
Outlook and OneNote – Ad-free email, shared family calendar and digital notebooks.
Access (PC only) – Desktop database app on Windows; not available for Mac.
Copilot in apps – AI drafting and summaries for the subscription owner.
Core Capacity – 2 TB shared OneDrive pool for up to six people.
Important – Copilot not shareable, Publisher removed, no business admin tools.

What are the main benefits of Microsoft 365 Family?

Microsoft 365 Family, also known as Home (formerly Office 365 Home), lets the subscription owner share the desktop Office apps, OneDrive storage and Microsoft Defender with up to five other people, each signing in with their own Microsoft account. New subscriptions since October 8, 2026 receive 2 TB of OneDrive as one shared pool instead of a fixed 1 TB per person.

Six user accounts – Owner plus five members, each with private sign-in.
Private files – Members cannot see each other's documents or emails.
Family inbox, calendar – Common Outlook.com inbox and calendar for household planning.
Flexible storage pool – Members needing more space draw from unused capacity.
Ongoing feature updates – New Word and Excel features arrive without upgrade purchases.
Teams group calls – Calls up to 30 hours with up to 300 people.

What does Microsoft 365 Family include in 2026?

Microsoft 365 Family includes the desktop versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote for every member, plus Access on Windows PCs, Microsoft Defender, Microsoft Teams and 2 TB of shared OneDrive storage. Each member also gets the web and mobile versions of the apps under their own account, so a school presentation started on a Windows PC can be finished on a tablet. The owner can add members only from their Microsoft family group, and a member cannot pass the subscription on to anyone else. Publisher is no longer part of the bundle, because Microsoft removed it from Microsoft 365 in October 2026.

Who is Microsoft 365 Family best suited for?

Microsoft 365 Family fits a household where at least two people need the full desktop Office apps, because one subscription covers the owner and up to five members. A typical case is parents who keep the household budget in Excel and children who write school assignments in Word, each on their own laptop and with their own OneDrive files. Each member signs in with a personal Microsoft account, so nobody sees another person's documents, emails or photos unless they share them deliberately. A person who will never share the plan pays for capacity they do not use and is better served by Microsoft 365 Single.

What is the difference between Microsoft 365 Family and Microsoft 365 Single?

Both plans contain the same desktop apps, including Access on Windows, but Family can be shared with up to five additional people while Single, also sold as Personal, is for one person only. Single includes 1 TB of OneDrive for the account holder, whereas new Family subscriptions receive a 2 TB pool shared by all members. In both plans, Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook is available to the subscription owner, so adding family members does not add more Copilot users. Family also includes a shared family inbox and calendar in Outlook.com, which Single does not have.

How does the 2 TB shared OneDrive storage in Microsoft 365 Family work?

New and upgraded Microsoft 365 Family subscriptions have used one 2 TB OneDrive pool for all members since October 8, 2026, replacing the earlier model of 1 TB per person. There is no fixed allocation per member, so a teenager who stores little leaves room for a parent who archives large photo and video libraries. Existing Family subscriptions move to the shared pool at their first renewal on or after May 2, 2027, and Microsoft notifies subscribers by email beforehand. A household that goes over 2 TB keeps access to its files for up to one year while it frees space or buys more, and the pool can be extended up to 10 TB. Members can see each other's total usage, but not each other's files.

Can every family member use Copilot in Microsoft 365 Family?

No, Microsoft's current support pages state that the AI features of Microsoft 365 Family are available only to the subscription owner and cannot be shared with other members. For the owner, Copilot can draft a letter in Word, rewrite a paragraph in a different tone, or summarize a long email thread in Outlook, subject to usage limits. Shared members still get the full desktop apps and storage, but without Copilot inside Word, Excel or PowerPoint. Microsoft has told subscribers by email that it plans to extend AI features to all members, but it has not published a date, so buyers should not count on it yet.

Does Microsoft 365 Family still include Microsoft Publisher?

No, Microsoft ended Publisher in October 2026 and removed it from Microsoft 365, so no member of a Family subscription can open or edit .pub files in Publisher anymore. Microsoft recommends saving existing Publisher files as PDF, or opening that PDF in Word when the content must stay editable, although complex layouts may shift during conversion. For a household that used Publisher for club newsletters, birthday invitations or flyers, that layout work now belongs in Word, PowerPoint or a dedicated publishing tool. Converting old .pub files before relying on the new subscription avoids losing access to them.

Does Microsoft 365 Family include Access, and does it run on Mac?

Yes, Microsoft Access is included in Microsoft 365 Family, but only for Windows PCs; there is no Access version for macOS. In a mixed household, this means a family member on a Windows laptop can build a database for a collection, a club membership list or a small inventory, while members on a MacBook cannot open or edit the .accdb file. Office Home 2024 and Office Home & Business 2024 do not include Access at all, which makes Microsoft 365 one of the few consumer Office products that does. Anyone planning to share an Access database within the family should check that each person who edits it uses Windows.

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Does Microsoft 365 Family work on Mac, iPhone and Android?

Yes, Microsoft 365 Family covers Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote on Windows and Mac, as well as the mobile apps for iPhone, iPad and Android. This is useful in households that mix platforms, for example a parent on a Windows PC, a student on a MacBook and a younger child on an Android tablet, all on one subscription. Features still differ by platform: Access is Windows-only, and Microsoft notes that app availability varies by device and language. Files saved to OneDrive open on all of these platforms, so a spreadsheet created on Windows can be checked on an iPhone.

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What happens when a member leaves or is removed from Microsoft 365 Family?

The member's files stay intact, but they lose the desktop Office apps, the shared OneDrive storage and access to the family inbox and calendar in Outlook.com. Their OneDrive returns to the free storage size, and Office documents can then only be viewed and printed, not edited or created. This matters when a grown child moves out: files above the free storage limit should be moved or the person should get their own subscription before being removed. The same view-and-print restriction applies to all members if the owner's subscription ends.

Microsoft 365 Family or Office 2024: which one should I choose?

Choose Microsoft 365 Family if several people in the household need the desktop apps, cloud storage and Access; choose Office 2024 if one user only needs the core apps with a fixed feature set and no cloud services. Office Home 2024 contains Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, and Office Home & Business 2024 adds Outlook, but neither includes Access, Copilot, shared OneDrive storage or the option to share with family members. Office 2024 receives security fixes but no new features after release, while Microsoft 365 apps receive new functions as Microsoft ships them. For a single user who edits offline and never uses OneDrive, Office 2024 is often enough.

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Can Microsoft 365 Family be used for a business?

Microsoft 365 Family is a consumer plan for a family group and contains none of the components a company needs to manage staff. There is no admin center for creating or blocking employee accounts, no email on your own company domain, and no central control over company files, because each member's data belongs to their personal Microsoft account. A business with employees should use a Microsoft 365 Business plan, where accounts and data belong to the company. A self-employed person who uses Office for their own work should check Microsoft's current use terms for their situation.

What should I check before choosing Microsoft 365 Family?

Check first how much OneDrive storage your household already uses in total, because new Family subscriptions share one 2 TB pool rather than giving each person 1 TB. Decide who should be the subscription owner, since Copilot in the Office apps is currently available only to that person. Make sure everyone you want to add is or can become part of your Microsoft family group, because the plan can only be shared there. If anyone still relies on Publisher, convert their .pub files to PDF or Word before the switch.

Frequently asked questions about Microsoft 365 Family

Does the Microsoft Defender app in Microsoft 365 Family replace my antivirus?

No, Microsoft states that the Defender app does not replace existing malware protection on Windows and iOS devices. Its value for a family is one app that covers computers and phones, with continuous scanning for viruses, malicious apps and ransomware. The privacy protection VPN that was once part of Defender was discontinued in February 2025.

Do Outlook's security features work with Gmail accounts?

No, the additional Outlook security features in Microsoft 365 Family apply only to @outlook.com, @hotmail.com, @live.com and @msn.com addresses. Members can still add other email accounts to the ad-free Outlook app, but those accounts do not receive these protections.

Can the subscription owner see the files of other family members?

No, each member's files, emails, contacts, photos and notebooks are stored separately, and Microsoft states that none of a member's data is shared with the subscription holder after joining. Only the shared family inbox, calendar and items a member chooses to share are visible to others.