Microsoft is working to restore its Outlook email service and several Microsoft 365 applications after a major technical outage disrupted access for users worldwide on Thursday, November 12, and continued into Friday, November 13.
The incident initially affected users in the United States and other parts of the Americas before expanding to additional regions, leaving businesses and individual customers unable to access email accounts, send messages or use certain cloud-based services.
According to Microsoft, the disruption extended beyond Outlook to include Microsoft Teams, SharePoint Online, Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Defender XDR, among other products.
The outage also affected access to OneDrive and web-based Office applications for some consumers.
Microsoft Identifies Server Failures as a Major Factor
Microsoft initially reported unusually high demand on parts of its infrastructure. Subsequent investigations indicated that a large number of servers had become unexpectedly unavailable, transferring additional traffic to the remaining operational systems.
The company began redistributing connections across its worldwide infrastructure, restarting affected servers and implementing measures to improve capacity.
Microsoft later identified problems involving processes responsible for establishing secure connections between services.
By Friday, the company reported improvements in server stability after applying a configuration patch, although service restoration remained incomplete.
Microsoft said it had not identified evidence of malicious activity causing the incident.
Businesses and Government Services Affected
The disruption affected organizations that depend on Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure for daily operations, including email communication, document sharing, collaboration and cybersecurity management.
According to the Associated Press, the outage also affected some government operations, with disruptions reported across Asia and other regions.
Downdetector, a platform that collects user-submitted service complaints, recorded approximately 130,000 Outlook-related problem reports near the peak of the incident.
Microsoft Continues Recovery Efforts
The outage follows another significant Microsoft 365 disruption in September, when users experienced prolonged email and authentication problems.
In the latest incident, Microsoft said it was expanding infrastructure repairs and monitoring server stability while prioritizing regions entering peak business hours.
Some services have shown signs of recovery, but the company has not confirmed that all affected applications are operating normally worldwide.
Microsoft continues to investigate the underlying technical cause and is expected to provide further information once the incident has been fully resolved.
Sources: Microsoft 365 service-health updates; TechCrunch; Associated Press; CIO; November 12–13, 2026.
