Microsoft 365 outage drags on for hours, disrupting Outlook and Teams worldwide

A major Microsoft 365 outage disrupted services across multiple regions, leaving users unable to access Outlook, Exchange Online, Teams and other applications as the disruption stretched to approximately 12 hours.

The outage, which began on Thursday, November 12, affected businesses, government agencies and individual users, with disruptions continuing into Friday's Asia-Pacific business hours, Reuters reported.

Microsoft said the problem was linked to unexpectedly unavailable servers rather than an unusual increase in user traffic. The affected infrastructure experienced elevated loads as requests were redirected to the remaining operational servers, placing additional pressure on the system.

In updates posted on X, Microsoft 365 Status said several recovery measures had been introduced, including redistributing traffic, restarting affected servers and adjusting infrastructure configurations. However, the company acknowledged that its efforts had not delivered the expected level of recovery.

Microsoft reported some improvement in affected regions but said it was exploring alternative measures to restore capacity and stabilise services. The company also said it was not aware of any malicious activity behind the disruption. 

The outage affected access to Exchange Online mailboxes through Outlook on the web, desktop and mobile connections. Other Microsoft 365 services, including Copilot, SharePoint and Teams features dependent on Exchange Online, also experienced problems.

Downdetector recorded more than 130,000 reports of Outlook issues in the United States at the outage's peak, alongside thousands of complaints involving other Microsoft services. 

Microsoft said some Teams functionality in North America had been restored earlier, although connectivity issues continued for users relying on other affected services.

The disruption also affected government operations and businesses across several countries, highlighting the widespread dependence on Microsoft's cloud-based services.