Microsoft Outlook Suffers Global Outage, Disrupting Email Services Worldwide
Aaron Parker Microsoft Outlook is experiencing a widespread global outage, leaving users in different parts of the world struggling to access their email accounts and use other Microsoft services.
The disruption, reported on Thursday, November 12, 2026, has affected access to Exchange Online mailboxes, with users experiencing difficulties loading their inboxes, sending and receiving emails, and connecting to the platform through different devices and applications.
Microsoft has acknowledged the disruption, confirming that the issue could affect Microsoft 365 service connectivity in any region.
The outage has also affected other Microsoft services, including Microsoft Teams, SharePoint Online, Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Defender XDR, although the level of disruption varies across the platforms.
According to outage-tracking website Downdetector, reports of problems with Outlook surged during the disruption, reaching more than 130,000 reports at their peak. Thousands of additional users also reported difficulties accessing other Microsoft services.
Microsoft said part of its infrastructure was experiencing elevated loads, contributing to connectivity problems across multiple regions.
In response, the technology company said it had paused deployments, begun redirecting traffic away from affected infrastructure and was restarting impacted servers as part of efforts to restore normal services.
The company has also been investigating problems with server health checks that were causing some affected servers to become unavailable.
The cause of the disruption has not yet been fully established, and Microsoft has not provided a confirmed timeline for the complete restoration of all affected services.
The outage has raised concerns among individuals and businesses that depend on Microsoft’s platforms for daily communication, workplace collaboration and other operations.