Microsoft 365 suffered a major global outage on Thursday, 12 November 2026, disrupting access to Outlook, Teams and Copilot for users around the world.
Outlook was the worst hit of the three services, with thousands of users also reporting problems with Teams and Copilot. The disruption spread worldwide within an hour of it beginning, reaching users in 74 countries and territories, according to Downdetector.
Microsoft said the problems were caused by “elevated load” on its infrastructure and that it was working “aggressively” to reduce the impact. The company said it had paused deployments, moved traffic away from the affected infrastructure and restarted servers.
About 130,000 users in the United States reported problems with Outlook shortly after 1pm ET (1800 GMT), Downdetector figures showed. Reports had fallen to about 37,000 by 6pm ET (2300 GMT). Thousands also reported problems with Teams and Copilot.
Microsoft said it was “observing limited recovery” after 6pm ET, with services recovering gradually as clients reconnected.
The outage also affected connectors used by OpenAI’s and Anthropic’s AI services, Reuters reported.
Microsoft said there was no indication of a cyber attack behind the disruption. As of Friday morning, 13 November, the outage was still listed as live by the BBC, with Microsoft continuing to work to restore service.
Source: AFP via Malay Mail
