Microsoft has gone to some significant lengths to prevent anyone from getting the grey theme in Office 2016. If I allow Full control, then Excel resets the theme to Dark Grey every time it opens. With 4 set, and reading access only, Excel opens in Colourful mode, instead of the one I had entered previously - 'Dark Grey'. Also updated the binary value to 4 in the Roaming profile folders. I have followed all the instructions to the letter (UI Theme key set to 4 and read-access only).

I am on Office 2016 Build 4939 - a rather old build at the time of writing. However - we may still want the black theme! A person does not need to be a terrorist or pedophile to value his or her privacy! Anyone who believes in the principle of privacy will not want Office 365 OR the Insider version for this reason. Some people just DON'T want it even if it is free, since it takes personal user data and puts it in the Microsoft cloud, in the USA, on servers that are shared by default with the NSA and other US and allied agencies. That you can get Office 365 in various cheap or free ways.If you don't - then this thread is irrelevant to you and you do not need to post. That some people do not in fact like black themes.This thread is about the non-cloud versions i.e Office 2016 and Office 2019. That you can get black theme in 'Insider version' or Office 365.

Office 2016 mac black theme