Microsoft 365 outage disrupts Outlook, Teams and Copilot worldwide

A global Microsoft 365 outage has disrupted email and cloud services across dozens of countries. Microsoft reports early progress restoring systems and says there is no evidence of a cyberattack.

Key takeaways

• The disruption began Nov. 12 and continued into Friday, Nov. 13
• Outlook, Teams-related features, Copilot and other Microsoft 365 services were affected
• Microsoft is testing infrastructure fixes after servers stopped responding
• The company says it has found no indication of malicious activity

Microsoft outage leaves users without email

A failure involving Microsoft’s Exchange Online infrastructure prevented some people from opening Outlook mailboxes, sending emails or accessing connected services. Problems spread across regions on Thursday and continued into Friday morning.

Downdetector received complaints from 74 countries and territories within about an hour. In the US, Outlook reports exceeded 130,000 at their peak. Teams chats and calls remained largely available, although calendars, Copilot and some other Microsoft 365 features were disrupted.

Recovery patch shows progress, but problems remain

Microsoft said unexpectedly unavailable servers shifted demand onto the remaining infrastructure. Its investigation identified a process handling secure connections that was becoming overwhelmed. Some restarted servers failed again once traffic returned.

On Friday morning, Microsoft reported improved server stability after applying an authentication and routing patch to part of its infrastructure. The company was expanding the fix but has yet to confirm a full recovery or resolution time. It said it found no indication of a cyberattack.

What to do if Outlook is still down

The disruption affected businesses, schools and government agencies that depend on Microsoft’s cloud tools. Users awaiting important emails should check the official service status page and contact senders through another trusted channel when necessary.

Avoid unsolicited messages offering an urgent “Outlook fix” or requesting your Microsoft password. This is a general phishing precaution, not evidence the outage was an attack. Bitdefender Scamio can help assess suspicious messages and links; it can’t fix the service disruption.