Turn off Microsoft apps 'Microsoft AutoUpdate' app on a Mac

Microsoft used to just do a system notification you could easily disable. Now they launch the Microsoft AutoUpdate program process once per day.

This interrupts whatever you are doing to put the focus on the auto update app – watching a show? Streaming on Twitch? Sorry, it is now time to let you know... we didn't find any update for Office, but don't worry we checked!

Microsoft AutoUpdate dock icon. (Note that badges are not enabled in System Preferences > Notifications, so this red "1" appears to be drawn in the app icon itself.)

Today of course I had an update, but usually, it says no updates found.

This is mind-numbingly frustrating and I have unchecked the 'Automatically Download and Install' checkbox.

Is there a way to prevent this short of deleting the auto update app entirely?

I've been annoyed by the Microsoft AutoUpdater long too. Too many times it intrusively interrupted my work. So I decided to disable it and below was how I did it:

1. Open Terminal

2. Disable it:

   # disable the service
   launchctl disable gui/$(id -u)/com.microsoft.update.agent
   
   # check that the service is disabled
   launchctl print-disabled gui/$(id -u) | grep microsoft
   

   Alternatively if you wish not to disable the auto update but change the interval to launch the checking:

   # check current config content
   plutil -p /Library/LaunchAgents/com.microsoft.update.agent.plist
   
   # backup
   cp -a /Library/LaunchAgents/com.microsoft.update.agent.plist /somewhere/to/backup/
   
   # update the interval, e.g. 43200 seconds (i.e. 12 hours)
   sudo plutil -replace StartInterval -integer 43200 /Library/LaunchAgents/com.microsoft.update.agent.plist