Microsoft is working to restore its Outlook services after a major global outage disrupted email access and other products. The company attributed the outage to an "elevated load" on its infrastructure. The disruption, which began hours earlier, affected email as well as products such as Teams and the AI assistant Copilot. Users globally, from companies to governments, reported being unable to communicate via Outlook.
The impact of the outage was felt across 74 countries and territories, according to outage tracker Downdetector. A map posted by Downdetector showed the outage affected users across the Americas and parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa. One of the affected countries was New Zealand, where the foreign ministry sent a notice saying its "ability to receive emails has been affected by the global Microsoft outage."
Microsoft initially said it was investigating outage reports "in the Americas" but later confirmed that the issue apparently affected "Microsoft 365 service connectivity for users in any region." Microsoft 365 is the company's cloud-based subscription service that includes popular applications such as Outlook and Teams. The company determined that a portion of its infrastructure was experiencing elevated load across multiple regions.
The outage led to thousands of users reporting issues with Teams and Copilot, according to Downdetector. The tracker showed a sharp decline around 0450 GMT in users' reports of disruptions in Washington and Hong Kong. As the outage continued for hours, Microsoft posted a series of updates on X, detailing continued but unsuccessful efforts to restore full service.
Microsoft said it was "observing limited recovery" as it sought to route user traffic away from affected servers. "As capacity is restored, users may experience a gradual recovery as their clients reconnect," the company added. Despite these efforts, Microsoft admitted that its repair efforts were not progressing as expected.
The company is working to identify alternate workstreams that can be applied to increase capacity. Microsoft has not provided a timeline for when service is expected to be fully restored. The disruption has caused significant inconvenience for users relying on Microsoft products for communication and work.
The global outage highlights the vulnerability of cloud-based services and the impact of disruptions on users worldwide. Microsoft's efforts to restore service are ongoing, with the company urging users to monitor its updates for progress. The incident has also raised concerns about the reliability of cloud-based services and the need for robust infrastructure to support growing demand.
Key points
- Microsoft outage affects users globally, disrupting email access and products like Teams and Copilot.
- The outage was caused by an "elevated load" on Microsoft's infrastructure.
- The disruption has affected users across 74 countries and territories.
