Microsoft's email service Outlook suffered a major outage on the afternoon of the 12th, centered on the Americas. The company said it is investigating problems accessing Exchange Online mailboxes and that users in other regions may also be affected. Shortly after 1 p.m., more than 100,000 reports flooded the outage-tracking site Downdetector. Neither an estimated restoration time nor a cause has been announced.
Microsoft's (MS) email service Outlook suffered a major outage midday on Thursday, Nov. 12. In the middle of the workday, users across the U.S. and the Americas found their mailboxes would not open or that they could not send or receive email. Earlier the same day, the workplace messaging app Teams also had an outage. As of 3 p.m., Microsoft had not disclosed an estimated restoration time or the cause.
At a Glance
Mailboxes look empty, and sent emails won't go out
According to the outage-tracking site Downdetector, reports began rising around noon Eastern time. The tech outlet How-To Geek reported that reports passed 100,000 shortly after 1 p.m. Users complained that their inboxes would not load, that they could not log in, or that they could not send or receive email. The same problems appeared not only in web browsers but also in desktop programs and mobile apps.
Through its official status account (@MSFT365Status), Microsoft said, "We're investigating reports of users in the Americas being unable to access Exchange Online mailboxes through multiple access methods." Exchange Online is the cloud service that handles email for Microsoft 365, including Outlook. Thirteen minutes later, the company widened the scope, saying, "Users in all regions may be affected when connecting to Microsoft 365 services."
According to How-To Geek, Microsoft found connection errors in part of the infrastructure that receives and processes mailbox access requests. Multiple access paths were affected, including Outlook on the web, desktop Outlook and mobile email sync (Exchange ActiveSync). Microsoft explained that it is collecting network logs to find a fix. Some corporate administrators were also unable to reach the Microsoft 365 admin center, which is used to check outage status.
Teams and OneDrive also affected; cause unconfirmed
Microsoft first announced a Teams outage in North America at about 10:40 a.m. that day, and about 30 minutes later said the impact was decreasing thanks to an automated recovery action. The IT outlet Windows Central reported that by the afternoon, major Microsoft services including Outlook, Teams, Copilot, OneDrive and Azure were experiencing outages together. The outlet said outage reports had also increased for other services such as Google, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Cloudflare, but it has not been confirmed whether there is a common cause.
What You Can Do Now
Microsoft has not said whether any email was lost. The outage is understood to involve mailbox access and connectivity problems, so the first step once service returns is to check again for any backed-up email. However, it may take time after restoration for search, syncing and delivery of queued messages to return to normal. Resending the same email several times could result in duplicates for recipients, so it is best to check your Sent folder first after service is restored.
For urgent matters, it is better to reach people by phone, text message or another email account. You can follow the recovery status on the Microsoft 365 service status page (status.cloud.microsoft) and the @MSFT365Status account on X. If you use a company account, your IT administrator can check details in the Microsoft 365 admin center using incident number EX1550543. Impersonation emails may circulate during the outage, sending links and asking you to "re-verify your account." Do not log in through links in emails; go directly to the address you normally use.