Trending
Prev Story
Next Story

What we know about the global Microsoft outage

BBC News •
November 13, 2026 • 07:12 AM
1
1 reads 0 reactions

Microsoft has said the outage was not caused by a cyber-security incident, but efforts to fix the issues have so far been largely unsuccessful.

1 / 2
Swipe Photos

A major global Microsoft outage has caused problems, or in some cases disabled entire services. including emails and artificial intelligence products.

Reports of problems with the email provider Outlook peaked globally at nearly 140,000 around 18:00 GMT on Thursday, according to monitoring website Downdetector.

Microsoft has said the outage was not caused by a cyber-security incident, but efforts to fix the issues have so far been largely unsuccessful.

Here's what we know about the services affected and what went wrong.

Microsoft 365 Services, including Teams, Outlook and Microsoft's artificial intelligence software Copilot, have been affected by "connectivity problems".

While customers are reporting varying levels of access - many have not been able to send or receive emails, view certain files or details on their calendar apps.

Some users have been able to use Teams as normal and are using messaging and online meeting functions as usual.

The full scale of the outage has not been confirmed, but monitoring website Downdetector had 140,000 people from 74 countries report issues with Outlook on Thursday evening.

More than 430 million people use Microsoft 365 apps according to Microsoft's website.

The software is also used by companies worldwide and is expected to have a knock-on effect to other services.

Tech giants OpenAI and Anthropic have both reported problems as a result of the outage.

ChatGPT-maker OpenAI said it was investigating an issue affecting its connections to Microsoft's services, which has caused some tools to not work as expected.

Government agencies and services, including the Singaporean government and Australia's spy agency, have also said they have been affected.

The exact cause of the outage has not been confirmed, but Microsoft has ruled out a cyber-attack.

The company said it was "investigating reports of users experiencing issues accessing Exchange Online mailboxes through multiple connection methods in the Americas" at 22:00 GMT on Thursday.

It said that the issue was a "portion" of its infrastructure experiencing "elevated load" across multiple regions.

The term refers to when servers are handling a much higher volume of stress than they usually do.

In the case of the Microsoft outage, a large number of servers became "unexpectedly unavailable", the company said, which sent added traffic to remaining servers, straining these.

Shortly after the initial reports, the company said that its team was "seeing positive results" in its efforts to restart affected systems and was actively monitoring their performance.

But in the early hours of Friday morning, the company said the fixes were "not taking as expected".

Australian cyber-security expert Troy Hunt told the BBC the outage could have far-reaching consequences.

"Microsoft is a massive part of the internet backbone and reminds us how critical email still is.

"Not only does this outage affect many people's ability to work but also things like the ability to communicate about appointments, purchase things that need verification, create or access accounts and services," he said.

Paul Spain from New Zealand-based advisory firm Gorilla Technology said that qith e-mails and services offline, companies have practically "lost a business day", which is "frustrating" users".

Prev Swipe Story Next

Same Story from Other Publications

Compare how 6 other independent news outlets reported on this story.

6 Publications
TechCrunch
4h ago
Microsoft's latest email outage turned into a full blown global cloud crisis | TechCrunch

Microsoft's latest email outage turned into a full blown global cloud crisis | TechCrunch

Microsoft's day-long outage began with Outlook and Teams, and ended up taking much of the company's cloud services offline. Microsoft says it's gradually restoring service.

#microsoft #outlook #outage
Compare →
The Verge
4h ago
Microsoft’s massive Outlook outage continues

Microsoft’s massive Outlook outage continues

Microsoft 365 is starting to recover as its outage enters a second day.

#microsoft #outlook #outage
Compare →
CNN International
6h ago
Millions affected as Microsoft outage still ongoing on Friday morning | CNN Business

Millions affected as Microsoft outage still ongoing on Friday morning | CNN Business

A massive Microsoft outage has left millions around the world without access to Outlook email, Teams meeting tools and other staples of modern office life.

#microsoft #outlook #outage
Compare →
Al Jazeera English
7h ago
Microsoft hit by global outages: What happened and why?

Microsoft hit by global outages: What happened and why?

Outlook, Teams and Copilot remain disrupted in 74 countries as Microsoft reports ‘marginal success’ in fixing outage.

#microsoft #outlook #outage
Compare →
The Next Web (TNW)
9h ago
Microsoft’s Outlook and Teams outage passes 12 hours with no fix in sight

Microsoft’s Outlook and Teams outage passes 12 hours with no fix in sight

Microsoft’s global Outlook and Teams outage has passed 12 hours across 74 countries. The company says it’s not a cyberattack but has no sustained fix.

#microsoft #outlook #outage
Compare →
The Himalayan Times
9h ago
Is Outlook down? Widespread outage hits Microsoft email and other apps

Is Outlook down? Widespread outage hits Microsoft email and other apps

A widespread outage hit Microsoft platforms including Outlook on Thursday, with many users encountering trouble using their email accounts and other errors across the tech giant's suite of apps.

#microsoft #outlook #outage
Compare →

Related Stories

Technology
Build #2611