Microsoft 365 Outage Hits 74 Countries as Email Recovery Continues

Microsoft 365 Outage Disrupts Governments and Businesses Worldwide

According to Downdetector data, disruptions spread across 74 countries and territories within roughly 60 minutes. Microsoft initially investigated Exchange Online connection problems in the Americas before acknowledging that users worldwide could be affected. The company's admin-center advisory, MO1550821, placed the broader incident's start at 1:26 p.m. Eastern Time and identified problems involving Microsoft Teams, SharePoint Online, Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Defender XDR.

Roughly 430 million people worldwide use Microsoft 365, although that figure represents the broader user base rather than a verified count of affected users. Downdetector also recorded spikes in complaints involving Azure, OneDrive and the Microsoft Store. The disruption lasted more than 12 hours, interrupting access to tools used for routine workplace communication and collaboration.

Government operations were affected across several countries. Italy reported disruptions at the Presidency, various ministries and the Constitutional Court. New Zealand's foreign minister said email access had been interrupted at all the country's embassies, consulates and offices worldwide. Singapore's government technology agency separately reported that institutional emails were being blocked.

Britain also experienced widespread interruptions. Multiple National Health Service facilities advised patients against relying on web-based communications, while several Westminster lawmakers lost access to Microsoft services through their parliamentary accounts. A Parliament spokesperson acknowledged the problems and said alternative communication arrangements were being established. Japan's finance minister similarly urged citizens to contact authorities by telephone for urgent matters while email services remained disrupted.

Private companies adjusted their operations as well. Air India temporarily moved its email services to maintain customer support, while Workhorse Group postponed its quarterly earnings call. These disruptions affected organizations that depended on Microsoft services for both internal coordination and external communications.

Microsoft Blames Unavailable Servers, Extends Email Timeout

Microsoft attributed the outage to infrastructure overload after unexpectedly unavailable servers increased pressure on systems that remained operational. The company subsequently clarified that the strain resulted from lost server capacity rather than an unexpected increase in traffic. Some servers became unresponsive again as traffic returned during recovery.

Microsoft's early status update stated:

"We’re opening all available pathways to restore service, as our actions taken thus far have not provided the anticipated relief. We found a core process on affected servers is becoming overwhelmed, causing capacity loss."

The company also ruled out an identified cyberattack as the cause of the disruption, stating:

"At the moment we are not aware of any malicious activity that caused this incident."

Recovery efforts included pausing deployments, redistributing connections across Microsoft's global infrastructure, diverting traffic away from affected environments and restarting servers. Earlier measures had failed to deliver the expected improvement, prompting Microsoft to pursue additional ways to restore capacity and stabilize services.

Microsoft reported partial restoration shortly after midnight Central European Time. By Friday morning, the company said additional traffic-optimization changes were improving stability and capacity, with recovery measures being expanded across affected areas.

Microsoft also extended an email timeout by 48 hours to allow delayed messages to move through the system as services recovered. The measure was intended to help reduce the accumulation of undelivered emails while restoration continued.

Microsoft subsequently reported improvements across major regions:

"We’re seeing continued recovery progress across affected regions, with broader improvements in North America, sustained improvements across much of Europe, and encouraging recovery signals in Asia Pacific."

However, the company cautioned that service restoration had not been completed:

"Some users may still experience intermittent issues as recovery actions continue. We’re focused on recovery for the remaining affected environments while prioritizing email queue and backlog reduction."

The $3.88 trillion company committed to publishing a detailed incident report after resolution, covering the underlying cause, its response measures and other relevant findings.

Microsoft Reports Further Recovery as Email Backlogs Shrink

Microsoft reported further recovery progress on November 13, with service availability and email delivery performance improving across a growing portion of its affected infrastructure. The company said email queues had been significantly reduced and were approaching normal levels following additional mitigation measures.

The extended timeout window remained active to protect delayed messages while delivery caught up. Microsoft also reported broader improvements in North America, sustained progress across Europe and encouraging recovery signals in Asia Pacific.

However, intermittent access problems and email delays persisted for some users. Microsoft said it was restoring remaining infrastructure, investigating residual issues and monitoring service health across affected connection methods.