Microsoft struggling to restore Outlook services following global outage

Microsoft is working to restore its Outlook email services after a global outage disrupted access for users in several parts of the world.

The disruption has left affected users struggling to access their inboxes, send emails and use some of the platform’s key features, raising concerns among individuals and organisations that rely on the service for daily communication.

The outage, which began on Thursday, November 12, affected Microsoft’s Microsoft 365 services across 74 countries and territories, disrupting access to Outlook, Teams and its artificial intelligence assistant, Copilot.

Thousands of users reported difficulties accessing their email accounts, with some unable to send or receive messages while others could not load their inboxes.

According to outage-tracking website Downdetector, reports of Outlook problems peaked at nearly 140,000 globally, highlighting the scale of the disruption.

Microsoft initially attributed the problem to elevated traffic loads across parts of its infrastructure, which caused connectivity errors. The company said it had paused deployments, redirected traffic away from affected infrastructure and restarted servers in an attempt to restore services.

However, its recovery efforts have encountered difficulties, with some servers becoming unresponsive again after being brought back online.

In a subsequent update, Microsoft acknowledged that its latest changes were not producing the expected results and said it was exploring alternative measures to increase capacity and stabilise its systems.

The company also said there was no indication that the disruption was caused by a cyberattack.

The prolonged outage has disrupted businesses, government operations and other organisations that depend on Microsoft’s services for communication and daily activities.

Microsoft has apologised for the inconvenience and said it is continuing efforts to restore normal operations.