Microsoft tries new fixes as global Outlook outage continues

Microsoft was pursuing new ways to restore Outlook on Friday after its initial fixes failed to bring the email service back reliably. The global outage began on Thursday and continued for more than nine hours, disrupting Microsoft 365 services used by businesses, schools and government agencies.

Users reported being unable to load their Outlook inboxes or send and receive emails. Downdetector logged nearly 130,000 problem reports at the peak, with issues reported across 74 countries. Users also reported problems with Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive and Copilot, alongside Microsoft’s Word, Excel and PowerPoint apps.

Servers struggled as traffic returned

Microsoft identified unusually heavy demand on parts of its infrastructure across several regions. Some servers had become unavailable after failing automated health checks. Engineers brought some of them back online, redirected connections and limited traffic to reduce the load on affected systems. Some servers became unresponsive again as users reconnected.

In an overnight update, Microsoft said one of its changes had failed to produce the expected improvement and that it was looking for other ways to add capacity. Exchange Online, the service that handles email for many Outlook users, remained the most affected part of Microsoft 365 in an early Friday update. Teams chats and meetings were less affected, although some users continued to report connection problems.

Disruption reaches public services

The outage extended beyond office email. Japan’s government said its IT infrastructure had been affected, while Australian reports described disruption to schools, courts and public-sector staff. The effects varied across organisations and regions as Microsoft restored some capacity and users began reconnecting.

Microsoft said it had seen no indication of a cyberattack. The company had yet to confirm a root cause or give a timetable for full restoration in its early Friday updates. It said users could see a gradual recovery as more servers returned to service and Outlook apps reconnected.

NewsHub Finance | Technology | 13 November 2026