Global Microsoft Outage: Outlook, Teams and Copilot Disrupted for Thousands of Users Worldwide

Microsoft is experiencing a widespread global outage affecting access to Outlook, Teams, Microsoft 365 and Copilot, alongside several other platforms used daily by businesses, government institutions and individual users.

The disruption began on Thursday, November 12, and continued into Friday, November 13, 2026, after Microsoft's initial recovery attempts failed to fully restore normal operations.

According to reports collected by the outage-monitoring platform Downdetector, the incident has generated nearly 200,000 user reports, with disruptions recorded in more than 70 countries. These figures represent submitted reports rather than the total number of affected users.

Microsoft has acknowledged connectivity issues and excessive infrastructure load across multiple regions, confirming that its engineering teams are working to restore service stability.

Which Microsoft Services Are Affected by the Outage?

The disruption has affected several Microsoft platforms, particularly those relying on Exchange Online, the infrastructure responsible for managing email services within Microsoft 365.

The main reported problems include:

• Outlook and Exchange Online: Difficulties accessing email accounts, opening inboxes, and sending or receiving messages.

• Microsoft Teams: Errors affecting calendars, meeting scheduling, private channel creation and certain collaboration features, although basic calls and chats remain available in some cases.

• Microsoft 365 Copilot: Loading failures and difficulties accessing corporate emails, documents and calendar information.

• SharePoint Online: Restrictions affecting file sharing with users outside an organization.

• Microsoft Planner: Repeated errors involving task and project management.

• Microsoft Defender and the Microsoft 365 Admin Center: Problems accessing security tools and managing business accounts.

Microsoft has indicated that not every feature within these platforms is unavailable. Some functions continue operating, particularly those that do not directly depend on the affected infrastructure.

What Caused the Global Microsoft Outage?

Microsoft's preliminary investigation points to excessive infrastructure load affecting Exchange Online connectivity services.

According to the company's initial explanations, certain servers began responding intermittently, transferring additional workloads to other parts of the infrastructure.

This created a chain reaction, with connectivity problems spreading across services that share technological components.

Microsoft has indicated that a central server process became overloaded, reducing available capacity and complicating recovery efforts.

The company has found no evidence suggesting that the disruption was caused by a cyberattack or malicious activity, although its technical investigation remains ongoing.

Microsoft Recovery Efforts Face Unexpected Difficulties

Microsoft engineers have implemented several measures to address the outage, including restarting servers, redistributing network traffic and redirecting connections to alternative infrastructure.

Initially, the company reported encouraging results in several regions. However, it subsequently acknowledged that its recovery measures were not performing as expected.

Despite partial improvements in some areas, connectivity problems have persisted, prompting Microsoft to investigate additional methods to increase system capacity and stabilize affected services.

The company is also examining whether the excessive load reflects a genuine increase in requests or an abnormal distribution of traffic between servers.

For now, Microsoft has not announced a confirmed timeline for the complete restoration of services.

OpenAI and Anthropic Also Report Related Disruptions

The impact of the outage has extended beyond Microsoft's own platforms.

OpenAI and Anthropic, two major artificial intelligence companies, have also reported problems involving integrations with Microsoft services.

OpenAI has identified issues affecting connectors that allow its tools to interact with Microsoft applications and data.

Anthropic, meanwhile, has reported problems involving an upstream provider that have affected its Microsoft 365 connector.

These incidents highlight the extent to which modern artificial intelligence platforms and business applications depend on infrastructure provided by major cloud computing companies.

What Should Users Do if Outlook or Teams Is Not Working?

While Microsoft continues working to resolve the outage, users can monitor official service updates through the company's support and status channels.

Outlook users are advised to avoid unnecessarily deleting accounts, changing configurations or reinstalling applications, as the reported problems originate within Microsoft's infrastructure rather than individual devices.

Businesses and individuals can also temporarily rely on alternative communication channels and access locally stored documents when available.

For organizations that depend heavily on Microsoft 365, the disruption may interfere with internal coordination, email communications, document sharing and meeting schedules.

The incident remains under investigation, and services may gradually recover as Microsoft restores capacity and stability across its infrastructure.