A powerhouse of productivity landed for Mac users on September 24, 2018. Microsoft Office 2019 for Mac crashed the subscription party, offering an alternative to the never-ending payment model of Microsoft 365. Buy once, own forever. That’s the deal. The suite brought significant improvements over Office 2016, packaged in a perpetual license that appealed to users tired of monthly fees draining their accounts.

The purchase model is invigoratingly straightforward. One payment. One Mac. Done. No recurring charges surprising your credit card statement every month. You get Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote in the Home & Student edition. Need Outlook too? The Home & Business version has you covered. Some bundles even throw in Teams Classic. Initial activation requires a Microsoft account and internet connection, but after that, it’s yours.

Feature-wise, Office 2019 packs some serious upgrades. Word introduced Focus Mode for the easily distracted. Excel brought new charts and functions like IFS that made data nerds rejoice. PowerPoint added the Morph shift that made average presenters look like design professionals. Outlook users got Focused Inbox to separate important emails from the garbage. All apps received improved inking capabilities and customizable ribbons. The suite includes improved LaTeX support in Word for those working with complex mathematical formulas.

The system requirements aren’t demanding. You’ll need an Intel processor (Apple Silicon runs it via Rosetta 2), 4GB of RAM, and 10GB of disk space. The software supports the three most recent macOS versions at any given time. This follows Microsoft’s standard approach where support for older macOS versions is dropped as new versions are released.

Here’s the catch, though. Mainstream support ended October 10, 2023. No more security updates. Using it now? You’re living dangerously. Unlike Microsoft 365, Office 2019 is frozen in time. No new features. No fancy AI tools. No real-time collaboration. No cloud storage included.

Still, for those who hate subscriptions with a passion, Office 2019 for Mac remains the buy-it-and-forget-it option. One payment, years of use. Old school. Simple.