Microsoft 365 outage: Outlook, Teams and other services hit by widespread disruption; thousands of users report issues

Microsoft faced a widespread service disruption on Thursday, affecting Outlook, Microsoft 365, Teams and its AI assistant Copilot, with lakhs of users reporting problems accessing the company's services. The disruption affected users in the Americas and other regions, leaving many unable to access Exchange Online mailboxes. Its impact extended to Teams, SharePoint and other Microsoft services, as well as connectors used by AI platforms developed by OpenAI and Anthropic.

According to outage-tracking website Downdetector, reports of problems surged across Microsoft's services, with around 130,000 users reporting issues with Outlook at the peak of the disruption. The problems were reported across multiple regions, although the initial wave of complaints was concentrated in the US.

The disruption began shortly before 1 pm ET (11:30 PM India Standard Time) on Thursday, affecting users attempting to access email, collaboration tools and other Microsoft 365 applications. Teams users also reported difficulties accessing and using various functionalities.

Microsoft acknowledges disruption, works to restore services

Microsoft acknowledged the disruption through its Microsoft 365 Status account on social media platform X, saying its teams were working to restore services.

“We're investigating reports of users experiencing issues when accessing or using Microsoft Teams functionality in North America, and more details can be found in the Microsoft 365 admin center under TM1550488,” the company said.

Microsoft said the disruption could extend beyond North America. “While we're working to mitigate impact, we've confirmed the issue may affect Microsoft 365 service connectivity for users in any region, more information will be provided in the Microsoft 365 admin center under EX1550543,” it said.

The company also confirmed problems with Exchange Online, which powers its cloud-based email service. “We're investigating reports of users experiencing issues accessing Exchange Online mailboxes through multiple connection methods in the Americas,” Microsoft said.

Providing an update on its recovery efforts, Microsoft said, “We've confirmed related impact scenarios and have updated TM1550488. Our automated recovery features have taken action to restore service, and our telemetry indicates that these actions are effectively reducing impact. More details can be found in the Microsoft 365 admin center.”

Microsoft attributed the disruption to an unexpected loss of server availability, which placed additional pressure on the remaining infrastructure. The company said some servers were also failing automated health checks.

To contain the problem, Microsoft has paused deployments, redirected additional traffic away from the affected infrastructure and began restarting impacted servers.