OS X 10.11 El Capitan has been released some days ago. Unfortunately, Office 2016 For Mac does not seem to be fully compatible, as users report frequent crashes of Outlook, Excel and Word.
The related Microsoft Community Thread Outlook 2016 for Mac Freezes (OS X El Capitan) already counts more than 16300 views. 108 people report to have the same issue.
According to user hoidwldbxv who started the thread back in July, “Outlook freezes (pinwheel) and I’m forced to Force Quit Outlook as a result.”
“On a related note, Outlook 2016 for Mac will NOT let me export emails, calendar, etc. that Outlook 2011 for Mac offered. I don’t have an issue rolling back to Yosemite but I will lose all my emails. Is there a workaround for this?”
Faisal Jeelani from Microsoft promised back in July that they were “working hard to fix El Capitan issues and will keep pushing out updates to Mac Outlook that will contain these fixes.”
Some fixes until final release
Until the final release, only some of the issues have been fixed. Jeelani asks users who are still facing crashes or hangs to email Microsoft and to share details about the problem.
If you are affected, the comment of group member GeorgeWatkinson-Yull might be of some help. He reports that “the issue [only] occurs when Outlook and another office application such as Word or Excel is running.”
Otherwise you just have to reboot your system and cross fingers. If you really need to work on your Office files, you might consider editing them on Office Online via the web-browser until the problems get solved.
Source: Microsoft