Microsoft’s major services, including Outlook, Teams and Copilot, have experienced a widespread global outage, disrupting users across several countries. The company has acknowledged that its efforts to resolve the issue are not progressing as expected. The disruption began around midday in the United States on Thursday, November 12, 2026, and continued into Friday morning.
According to Downdetector data, reports of problems with Outlook peaked between approximately 1:00 pm and 1:15 pm Eastern Time on Thursday. During this period, around 130,000 to 140,000 outage reports were recorded worldwide. Users in several countries reported difficulties accessing emails, joining Teams meetings and using Copilot.
Which Microsoft Services Were Affected?
Microsoft confirmed through its Microsoft 365 admin centre and service status updates that several of its services were experiencing disruptions. These included Exchange Online (Outlook), Microsoft Teams, SharePoint Online, Microsoft 365 Copilot and Defender XDR.
Some users also faced difficulties accessing calendars, files and other enterprise tools. The outage affected multiple regions, including the United States, Europe and Asia-Pacific countries such as Japan, Singapore and Australia.
The disruption raised concerns among businesses and individuals who depend on Microsoft’s cloud-based services for everyday communication, collaboration and professional activities. Microsoft 365 is widely used by millions of individuals and hundreds of thousands of organisations worldwide.
What Did Microsoft Say About the Outage?
In its initial update, Microsoft reported that several regions were experiencing an elevated load on their infrastructure. The company later explained that the disruption was linked to the sudden unavailability of multiple servers, which increased pressure on the remaining infrastructure.
According to Microsoft, a process responsible for handling secure connections became overloaded. As a result, some servers failed automated health checks, affecting the overall performance and availability of services.
The company began working to bring affected servers back online and redirect traffic through alternative routes. Although Microsoft initially reported positive results from its recovery efforts, it later acknowledged that some of the changes were not working as expected.
Microsoft is now exploring alternative recovery measures to increase system capacity and restore normal operations. The company has not reported any indications of a cyberattack linked to the incident.
Current Status: Services Gradually Recovering
As of Friday morning, the number of outage reports had declined, but services had not been fully restored. While some users reported partial recovery, others continued to experience difficulties accessing Microsoft applications and online services.
Microsoft has stated that recovery is progressing gradually and that its technical teams are continuing to investigate the disruption. The company is also providing updates through its official service status channels.
Users experiencing continued problems have been advised to monitor Microsoft’s official service status website, status.cloud.microsoft, and its X account, @MSFT365Status, for the latest information. Those facing persistent issues can also contact their IT administrators or Microsoft support teams.
The incident has once again highlighted the risks associated with depending heavily on cloud-based platforms for essential business operations. Disruptions to widely used services such as Outlook, Teams and Copilot can affect communication, productivity and access to important information across organisations.
Microsoft continues to work towards restoring its services, while users await further updates on the full resolution of the global outage.
