MacOfficeRegedit

Registry editor for "Microsoft Office for Mac".

Office for Mac keeps its Windows-style HKEY_CURRENT_USER registry in a SQLite database at ~/Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/MicrosoftRegistrationDB.reg. This app browses and edits it with a UI modelled after Windows regedit.

Installation

1. Download the DMG of the latest release. Every merge to main publishes a new one.
2. Open it and drag MacOfficeRegedit to Applications.
3. Releases are not signed with a Developer ID yet, so macOS blocks the first launch. Click Open Anyway in System Settings ▸ Privacy & Security, or run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/MacOfficeRegedit.app.

Requires macOS 15 or later and Microsoft Office for Mac (which creates the registry). macOS may ask to allow access to data from other apps the first time the app opens Office's registry.

Features

• Key tree with an address bar (accepts Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\…, HKCU\… or relative paths)
• Values table with sortable columns, Windows-style formatting and last-modified time of the key
• Create, rename and delete keys and values (REG_SZ, REG_EXPAND_SZ, REG_MULTI_SZ, REG_DWORD, REG_QWORD, REG_BINARY)
• Editors for strings, multi-strings, DWORD/QWORD (hexadecimal/decimal) and binary data (hex dump, UTF-16 text preview)
• Find (⌘F) across key names, value names and data, Find Next (⌘G)
• Export a key (or the whole hive) to a .reg file and import .reg files, compatible with Windows regedit
• Copy key name, copy value data
• Live refresh when Office changes the database; warning while Office apps are running

Edit a DWORD in hexadecimal or decimal	Binary data as hex, with a UTF-16 text preview

Find searches key names, value names and data, including text stored in binary values.

Safety

• Before the first modification of an opened database, a consistent copy is saved to ~/Library/Application Support/MacOfficeRegedit/Backups (the 30 most recent backups are kept; File ▸ Show Backups in Finder). To restore, quit Office, copy a backup over the file the MicrosoftRegistrationDB.reg symlink points to, and delete any -journal, -wal or -shm file next to it.
• Quit Office apps before editing: they read settings at launch and may overwrite changes when they quit.
• File ▸ Open Database… opens any copy of the database instead of the live one.

Development

Open src/MacOfficeRegedit.xcodeproj (Xcode 16+; the project uses synchronized folders, so new files are picked up automatically).

Launch arguments (Product ▸ Scheme ▸ Edit Scheme ▸ Arguments):

• -RegistryDatabasePath /path/to/copy.reg – open a different database, e.g. a copy, instead of the live registry
• -RegistryReadOnly YES – open read-only
• -RegistryBackupsPath /path/to/dir – save automatic backups elsewhere

Tests:

• MacOfficeRegeditTests – unit tests; they create temporary databases and never touch the live registry. RealDatabaseTests round-trips a real registry through .reg export/import when REGEDIT_TEST_DB points to a copy:

  cp ~/Library/Group\ Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/MicrosoftRegistrationDB.reg /tmp/copy.reg
  TEST_RUNNER_REGEDIT_TEST_DB=/tmp/copy.reg xcodebuild -project src/MacOfficeRegedit.xcodeproj -scheme MacOfficeRegedit test

• MacOfficeRegeditUITests – UI tests against a generated fixture database (require granting UI automation access).

Screenshots

scripts/update-screenshots.sh regenerates the images in docs/screenshots by running ScreenshotTests, a UI test that opens a demo registry with made-up values (never a real one, which holds account details). Like the other UI tests it needs UI automation access; the screenshots follow the system's light or dark appearance.

Building a DMG

scripts/build-dmg.sh [output-dir] archives a universal (Apple silicon and Intel) Release build and packages it as MacOfficeRegedit-<version>-<build>.dmg, with a link to /Applications for drag-and-drop installation. Without signing settings the app is signed ad hoc; see the script header for the Developer ID and notarization variables.

Releases

The Build DMG workflow runs on the xcode-27 GitHub runner with Xcode 27.1. It runs the unit tests and builds the DMG for every pull request (download it from the run's artifacts), and on every push to main it also publishes a GitHub release v<version>-<run number> with the DMG attached.

Releases are signed ad hoc unless these repository secrets are set, so macOS blocks them on first launch (open them from System Settings ▸ Privacy & Security). Signing secrets are never used for pull requests.

Secret	Purpose
DEVELOPER_ID_CERTIFICATE_P12	Base64-encoded "Developer ID Application" certificate and private key (.p12)
DEVELOPER_ID_CERTIFICATE_PASSWORD	Password of the .p12
DEVELOPER_ID_APPLICATION	Signing identity, e.g. Developer ID Application: Name (TEAMID)
DEVELOPMENT_TEAM	Team ID
NOTARY_APPLE_ID, NOTARY_TEAM_ID, NOTARY_PASSWORD	Apple ID, team and app-specific password for notarization (optional)

Layout

Folder	Contents
App	App entry point and menu commands
Models	Keys, values, typed value data, FILETIME and path helpers
Database	RegistryDatabase – all SQL access (reads, transactional writes, backups)
Store	RegistryStore – UI state and operations; file watcher; running Office apps monitor
RegFile	.reg file parser and serializer
Views	SwiftUI views and value editors

Roadmap

See the open issues for a list of proposed features (and known issues).

Contributing

Contributions are what make the open source community such an amazing place to learn, inspire, and create. Any contributions you make are greatly appreciated. For detailed contributing guidelines, please see CONTRIBUTING.md. Report security issues as described in SECURITY.md.

License

Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for more information.

Microsoft and Office are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies. This project is not affiliated with, sponsored or endorsed by Microsoft.

Contact

See MAINTAINERS.md for the project maintainers.

Project Link: https://github.com/slidoapp/MacOfficeRegedit