Microsoft outage hits Outlook, Teams and 365
Microsoft is struggling to restore access to its flagship software half a day after an outage began, leaving users unable to access email and chat services in one of the tech giant’s most severe disruptions in recent memory.
Users across the world on Friday reported problems with Outlook, Teams and the Copilot artificial intelligence tool, after the services were unavailable for many during the previous day in the US.
Microsoft’s products are among the most widely used software among business, government and educational institutions.
The outage, which attracted about 200,000 reports of user issues on Downdetector, ranks among the company’s most significant.
Previous disruptions have rarely lasted more than several hours. Microsoft shares were down 0.4% in extended trading.
We’re investigating reports of users experiencing issues accessing Exchange Online mailboxes through multiple connection methods in the Americas. More details can be found in the Microsoft 365 admin center under EX1550543.— Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) November 12, 2026
Though the number of new reports of disruption has slowed, services have not been restored.
As the outage intensified on Thursday, Microsoft added to its tally of products users might not be able to access.
In a series of updates to its status page, the company provided details of frustrated efforts to fix its malfunctioning systems and route user traffic away from affected servers.
It said an investigation into the incident had found “a core process on the affected servers is becoming overwhelmed, which causes the servers to stop responding and contributes to the capacity loss.”
Microsoft said that it was trying to “pinpoint the underlying cause of the traffic influx,” adding “we are not aware of any malicious activity that is causing this incident.”
In the US, the outage led Workhorse Group Inc., a US-based truck and bus manufacturer, to postpone its earnings release.
School districts, universities and hospitals were among those warning that communications might be limited.
PVH Corp., the apparel conglomerate that owns the Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger brands, announced Thursday in internal company emails and stock exchange filings that it would cut about 4% of its global workforce.
Some of the difficult conversations, scheduled to start in Asia on Friday morning, did not take place because of the outages, leaving employees uncertain of their future at the company, according to a person familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity to describe private matters.
PVH did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Users in more than 70 countries reported problems accessing Microsoft’s products, according to Downdetector.
Services for technologists, including cybersecurity software, file-sharing services and administrator tools, were also disrupted.
The company sells those products, along with workplace staples like Word and Excel, in a bundle under the M365 brand.
Traders in Singapore, Indian brokerages and officials in Tokyo all reported issues with Microsoft services on Friday.
Disruption was widespread across Japan’s government. The finance ministry said in a statement that it had been unable to receive emails for most of the day.
Government ministries resorted to pinning up paper notices to inform journalists about daily schedules because of the email outage.
Staffers at the Reserve Bank of Australia were also impacted, with Outlook down across departments at the bank, but critical operations running as normal.
In New Zealand, immigration officials paused the processing of all visa applications due to the outage.
Loading ...